You Don't Know Me
by greenstuff2
Summary: No, you don't know the one who dreams of you at night, who longs to kiss your lips and longs to hold you tight ...
1. Chapter 1

_**All rights to TG and the BBC**_

 _ **PROLOGUE**_

"Stay with me, come on, stay with me" She was yelling at the casualty who was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, blood pumping from his stomach wound as she packed his belly with gauze and used her other hand to shake him intermittently, trying to stop him drifting away from her into coma.

"We're losing him" Her fellow medic and colleague shouted, he was trying to monitor what vital signs the casualty still had and then relay them to where she was kneeling with her back to him trying desperately to stop their patient bleeding to death.

"No, come on, come on, you've gotta stay with me" She turned and looked up at the sky "Where the fuck is that fucking chopper? He's gonna bleed out before they get here at this rate"

"ETA two minutes, but they can't land here, they're looking for somewhere now, and whatever it is you're doing to him down there, don't stop, keep on doing it, his heart likes it"

"That's cos I've got me hand stuffed inside his guts and now I'm getting bloody cramp in me fingers and its bloody killing me, Jesus, I wish they'd hurry the fuck up"

-OG-OG-OG-OG-

 _ **You gave your hand to me**_

 _ **And you said hello**_

Listen I never really wanted the job in the first place, I'm not a cleaner, cleaning someone else's shitter was never my lifetime ambition, it weren't something I wanted to do, be a cleaner or a home help or a carer or anything like that. I do not clean up after other people and that's flat. I was quite happy to live in if I had to as part of a job, in fact it was very helpful as things stood, but I wanted to do something that would, you know, lead to me doing something with me life, being able to … sort of, get on a bit. When I went to the Job Centre all they had was working a 'commission only' zero hours contract at a bleeding call centre, I mean, they were having a laugh weren't they with my phone voice? And I did not want to spend all day pestering pensioners about bloody PPI just so as I would get paid. Apart from that, all they kept on about was going on bleeding training courses which might have sounded like they were perfect for me and magic 'n all that, but how am I s'posed to live while I'm being 'trained'?

The trouble is all the experience I've got is working as an untrained techie in an unlicensed nail bar, and the bloody local authority has just closed it down for using illegal chemicals.

The old dear behind the desk at the agency was doing her best not to sound patronising which is most likely an occupational hazard for her when she has to deal with people like me "You need to earn some money, so you need a job, right?" I nodded "As soon as possible?" Another nod "And you've got no qualifications at all?" I shrugged and she shook her head "And you've got no experience, so no references either?" Shit, it didn't sound good, did it? I might not have much going for me, okay nothing at all really, but I'm definitely not thick, I just haven't really sorted out what I want to do yet, so I explained to her about the nail bar and she looked at me over the top of her specs and muttered something about it being best not to talk about that.

She shuffled her papers about, looking for something, and I wondered whether she was holding me personally responsible for trying to burn someone's skin off with shonky chemical crap, but I'd got no idea what the hell it was I was using, I'd just done as I was told. Anyway, I was bloody lucky it hadn't burnt all the skin off my hands, I'd been using it for days without gloves before the shit hit the fan, not that it made any difference, I was still out of work and skint, flat stony broke. Not only that, but I was most likely gonna be homeless with rent arrears on top cos me flatmates were beginning to be a bit, well, arsey about it and worse I wasn't entitled to enough benefits to keep me, and I'd have to sign up for one of these courses to get anything at all, not that I had any intention of claiming anything if I could help it, and I absolutely refuse to go home with me tail between me legs and prove they was right.

I'm 21 and my life so far is total crap! This is not what I thought it would be like to be grown up.

I found the agency in one of them small ads in one of the free papers you get shoved at you outside the tube and it said it specialised in "Jobs with a Difference" which I thought probably meant escorts or lap dancers or something, which shows how desperate I am, but apparently I'm not even qualified to do that, or she never mentioned it anyhow. It seems that I _am_ bloody qualified to be someone's cleaner, or it just might be that no-one else wants to shift all the way to Epsom to clean up after someone else for minimum wage.

I live in east London, which people talk about as being 'up and coming' and a bit 'trendy' because of the Olympics 'n that a couple of years ago, and also cos it's the closest you can get to proper London cos no-one can afford to live there anymore, well, apart from them Russians and Chinese, so Hackney and east Ham and Stokie, Stoke Newington, are suddenly 'cool'. To be fair, Stratford isn't bad, you know, where the Olympics were, but the rest is not cool, it's a total shithole and I'd love to live somewhere else, just not sure about Epsom. To be honest, I'm not even sure where it is except that they have horse racing there so there's lots of trees which give me the willies, I know cos it's been on tele sometimes.

"He's a soldier, an officer, needs a bit of help around the house while he's recovering, got himself hurt in Iraq or Afghanistan or somewhere out there" She pulled out a card and started reading "It's temporary, just for a few weeks, a couple of months at the most, his mother called it in, she can't spare the time to help because she's far too busy apparently, well that's what she said, sounded like it was beneath her actually, very posh" Her professional manner was just beginning to unravel a bit as she remembered now how the mother had got well up her nose.

I had to ask her whether there was any nursing, because nursing, like cleaning, is another thing I don't do, although it's something I've thought about trying, but when I checked it out it seems that I don't have the exams you have to have. The only job I'd get would be as a ward maid or a cleaner and that would definitely be cleaning up puke and blood and worse, so thanks but no thanks, because then I'd be the one who'd need the sick bowl.

"No, I believe they've got a nurse goes in, it's just keeping the place clean and doing the shopping and a bit of cooking, can you cook?"

Another shrug, it really depends what you call cooking, I can do pasta and I can open a jar of sauce with the best of them, and I'm ace at heating things up in a microwave, or even an oven, but I can't actually lie and pretend I'm Nigella, so I give her a little smile and the woman, who can probably see straight through me, smiled back and changed the subject quickly.

"It's just important that someone's there at night in case of, you know, an emergency or something, he's in a wheelchair at the moment" She paused and shrugged then tried to pack as much enthusiasm into her voice as she could, I think she could see that I wasn't that keen "and the pay's good, it's above minimum wage and it would tide you over for a bit"

-OG-

"You're a lot younger than I expected" Mrs James looked at me a bit dubious as I sat in front of her and I'm not sure that she thought that me jeans 'n 'T' shirt were the right sort of stuff for an interview, but it's for a cleaner for fuck's sake "Have you had any experience as a housekeeper? The agency didn't say"

Housekeeper? Shit, that bloody woman at the agency never mentioned the word housekeeper, did she?

"Not as such, but I come from a big family and me mum works, so I've had tons of experience cleaning and tidying and looking after … stuff …..'n that"

Why the fuck I was trying to make this woman like me and want to employ me I hadn't got a scoobie, from the first minute I'd walked into that room and clapped eyes on her I'd decided that hell would freeze over before I'd want to come and work here, even temporary. She's most likely a very nice lady, she seems nice enough, but she behaves like someone Nan would call a bleeding Duchess and her voice is so posh it sounds like she's faking it, like she's putting it on. She asked me about me references so I told her that I haven't got a record, which is true, and then gave her me sad tale about the nail place going out of business but I never mentioned the chemicals or the environmental health lot, just kept me gob shut cos I remember how the agency seemed to think I had something to do with all that shit. Anyhow, none of it really mattered because I was getting me gob ready with me 'thanks but no thanks' speech.

She'd showed me round the place, very nice and already dead clean and tidy, don't look like it needs a cleaner anyhow and she told me a bit about her son getting shot and how he's gonna go to that Headley Court place what they talk about on the tele, and what's just down the road, but his wounds have got to heal up a bit first before he can start all that physio stuff. He was in hospital in Birmingham but wanted to get out and he didn't actually _need_ to be there anymore, apparently, and then she said as how their house in Bath is no good for someone who needs a wheelchair, hundreds of stairs, so he's living here for a bit. A nurse comes in every day and checks him over and does his dressings 'n that, but he needs help to keep stuff clean and do the shopping and whatever.

The future father of my children just wheeled himself in through the door, well maybe not, I don't know where he got wounded, nobody said. I couldn't help grinning a bit cos, you know, as long as he's okay, if you know what I mean, I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crisps, or for anything else for that matter, even though he didn't seem to look at me in quite the same way for some reason, more like I was something he'd just scraped off the bottom of his shoe.

"Mum, a word" Another posh voice, although he didn't sound like he was faking it he just sounded dead sexy, well, I might have been a tiny bit biased, as he sort of moved his head to get his mother to follow him out of the room without even so much as nodding at me, he obviously wants a chat without me being able to hear. Rude sod.

It was then I decided to bin the 'no thanks' speech, that's if they're dumb enough to offer me the job, who the bloody hell does he think he is, looking down his nose at me like that? And it is only temporary, so it'll give me some time to think what I'm gonna do next.

-OG-

My mother has been really good, I'd be the first to recognise and thank her for it, she spent weeks up in Birmingham, putting her own life on hold while she sat by my bedside and held my hand during those first horrendous days and nights, and then when I started to recover, she spent hours on the internet and traipsing around Epsom looking to find me somewhere to live until I go into Headley.

This place is perfect, ground floor, nice wide doorways for a wheelchair, grab handles already installed in the shower and next to the loo, looks as though it's been adapted already for someone with a disability, not that I'm disabled, the bloody useless shaky legs and the wheelchair are just temporary, just a matter of time, thank God. It's also not far from the town centre so getting a cab to go anywhere is easy, although I haven't ventured out to a pub or anything as yet, I'm waiting for a bit more fitness to come back before I do that, and, to be honest, even the thought is a bit exhausting at the moment, but the one thing I don't need is a nanny!

I already have an agency nurse comes in every morning, helps me shower and does my dressings and I know mum said she would pay for her to come again in the evenings, but I'm not having that, although I have promised that I'll say if I need more help. I've already told her that a 'daily' coming in a couple of mornings a week to run the vacuum round and do a bit of ironing or shopping will be plenty, some nice, motherly older woman probably, not a bloody teenager who looks as if she'll be about as much use as a chocolate fireguard, especially not one who was giggling as though she found something very amusing.

Mum invariably gets her own way, so how come when I'm talking about her to the lads I always refer to her as 'my mummy' as though she's some sweet little white-haired old lady with a walking frame and a hearing aid, when in actual fact she's the most manipulative woman you could ever wish to meet, how my dad has survived all these years is beyond me. She calmly told me that she's already offered 'chocolate fireguard' the job, on a month's trial to start with, but if I really don't want a stranger living in, she'll see whether Rebecca can come and stay with me until I'm fully mobile. As my mother, she doesn't think she can cope with the worry of me being alone in the place at night in case there's a fire or something, and if Rebecca can't do it for some reason, she'll have to come and stay here herself.

She knows that Rebecca would jump at the chance to get her feet back under my table, and that it would have me running screaming for the hills, if I could run that is, well if I was being honest, both of those options would do that, so it'd seem that 'chocolate fireguard' has just scored herself a job, albeit a very temporary one if I've got anything to do with it.

-OG-

"My mother tells me that she's offered you a month's trial, is that right?"

Did she? I must have missed that, I don't remember her saying anything like that at all, but I'm not gonna tell him am I?

"Yeah, if that's alright with you?"

Oh God, not only does she look as though she won't be any use to anyone, but she's got a voice that sets my teeth on edge, it's like someone running their nails down a blackboard. I mean, she's obviously a Londoner, a cockney, and she's quite pretty, so why the hell would someone as young as her want to bury themselves so far from home with someone like me, where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, well not the sort of place she's used to I'll bet, so this trial will probably be over almost before it starts. I'll give her a week before she runs off screaming.

"Right, its Molly isn't it?" I'll have to give her a key so that she can let herself in when she gets back with her stuff, there's no way I'm going to be waiting up with a cup of tea or anything, I'll start as I mean to go on, although I don't think she'll be here that long "Let yourself in when you get back, my mother showed you the room, yes?" she nodded "Help yourself to whatever you need in the kitchen and I'll see you tomorrow"

"Yes Boss" I don't know what the fuck I'm s'posed to call him, no-one told me his name and I don't call anyone Sir, so boss will have to pretty much cover it, and what does he mean, see you tomorrow? How long does he think it'll take me to get me stuff? It's not like I'll need to get a van or nothing for my few bits, and what about tea tonight, am I s'posed to cook it or what?

Jesus, he's a miserable looking bugger, maybe his wounds hurt?

-OG-

 **A/N: I am going to update "You don't have to say you love me" it's sort of half-written but I was struggling a bit with where I wanted to take them, so I took a bit of a break and wrote this which I hope you enjoy reading as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Please review for me.**


	2. Chapter 2

_**I'm just a friend**_

I meant to tell them I was moving out, once I'd got home and packed up me stuff I really intended to wait till one of them came in from work and then I'd tell her that I'd got a job and would pay what I owe as soon as I get paid, but let's face it I'm a shitting coward and I know how I'd feel if one of them had stopped paying her rent and lived off the rest of us, so I collected me stuff and left them a note, promising to pay them back as soon as I could. I s'pose I was lucky that no-one sold me stuff to cover what I owe them, mind you the whole lot put together was most likely only worth about 50p.

He had the tele on when I got back, I could hear it through the closed door, I mean, who the bloody hell closes the sitting room door when they're watching tele on their own in their own place? Maybe it's something posh people do or maybe he's just trying to tell me something. There wasn't anything I fancied to eat in the kitchen, well there wasn't much of anything in there, and I was bleeding starving, I haven't eaten much lately cos they don't give it away, well they do at them food banks but I never knew how to find one or even if I'd be allowed cos I'm single with no kids, and anyhow I didn't want to hang about in the kitchen at the flat because one of me flatmates could come in any second and start getting shitty with me.

There were some fliers on the hall table and because I think I'm probably a nice person, well a lot nicer than him anyhow, I knocked on the door, I can't believe that I've come to live here for a bit and I knocked on the fucking door like some bleeding servant, talk about Downton Abbey, then when I went in I asked him whether he wanted me to get him something from the chippy, which I thought was really nice of me, considering. If he wanted something mind, I hoped he'd give me some money to pay for it, cos a bag of chips is just about all I can afford, what with the train fares down here and that I'm now totally brassic.

I knew she was back, I could hear her banging about in the spare room and then she came and knocked on the bloody door, I mean, for fuck's sake I didn't say anything about her having to ask permission to be in the lounge or the kitchen, or anything, next thing we know she'll be asking if it's okay to use the bathroom. Anyway, this is the only television in the place and I don't expect her to behave like a servant, and she won't be here long enough to get on my nerves.

"I'm going to the chippy, get some chips, do you want anything?"

"No thanks, but if you're going to have vinegar on your chips, could you eat them in the kitchen" I never meant it to come out like that so that I sounded like some miserable old fart, God, what is wrong with me? I tried to soften the way that sounded "The smell gets everywhere in this flat" I can't believe I just said that to someone who'd made an obvious effort to be nice, offering to get me something to eat like that, especially as I had a take away Thai curry from the restaurant round the corner and even I can still smell it in here.

"Okay" I thought for a minute that he looked a bit, not sorry exactly, but as if he was a tiny bit ashamed of the way he'd just tried to make me feel bad about eating chips in his bloody posh flat, and let's face it so he should, the miserable fucker. He hasn't exactly put the red carpet out or bent over backwards to welcome me has he? I don't know what it's gonna be like working here but l've got a pretty fair idea I'm going to be bloody glad it's only temporary. Mind, it'll be quite nice not to have to worry about people banging on me door yelling for money while I try and pretend I'm not in.

I'll bet if he smiled he'd look completely different, I wonder what you'd have to do to make the miserable bugger smile?

-OG-

The nurse has been here for about a week, okay, maybe about twenty minutes, and she's in there with him with the bedroom door shut. She's obviously not NHS because if she was she'd have been in and out like a rat up a drainpipe and long gone by now, but it feels like forever cos I've been looking around for something to do, this place is sodding immaculate. There isn't any dust or dirt or mess anywhere, well, not that I can see anyhow, so I've emptied the laundry bin and put a wash on, it wasn't even half a load, but still, I've gotta show willing. I've done me room and I've wiped everything down in the kitchen and the bathroom, and it's only just gone 9.00 so I'm saving the vacuuming and the front room for later on, that way I can look busy when he's up and about. Shit, this is gonna be boring.

I don't know whether to wait for him or to have me breakfast cos I'm quite hungry and I'm dead bored, so I think I might gonna have to sit down and make a list of what's what with him once the nurse has gone, otherwise I'm gonna spend a shit load of time dicking about wondering what I'm s'posed to be doing, and one night of that was more than enough for me. I spent the whole evening, well, after I did as I was told and ate me chips in the kitchen, sitting in me room looking at four walls, texting everyone I could think of and then, when me battery died, trying really hard to read the book that one of me flatmates leant me a while ago and which I forgot to leave behind. I haven't read it yet, mainly cos I can't make head or tail of what it's s'posed to be about.

In the end I ate me coco-pops on me own, Christ knows what that bleeding nurse was doing in there, but whatever it was it was taking a shit long time and I couldn't wait any longer, I was starved, so I'm sitting in the kitchen having another go at reading the sodding book cos I don't wanna put the tele on and show him how pathetic I am. Even I think that someone who sits and watches Jeremy Kyle is pretty pathetic and I don't even know whether the boss would mind me sitting in his front room channel-hopping, it's his tele not mine and I haven't asked his permission and I don't even live here, I'm just staying here temporary.

When the nurse finally pissed off and he came out of his room, he was all showered and shaved and dressed 'n that so maybe that's what she was doing in there, although I couldn't blame her if she was doing something else, he really is a bit tasty, it's just a pity that he always looks so bloody miserable and unfriendly.

"Have you had breakfast?"

"Yeah, sorry, I didn't know whether I should wait for you … or what? Do you want me to get you some'ing?"

"No need thanks, I can manage"

I really, really wanted to say 'go on then, get on with it you miserable, ungrateful bugger' but that would most likely give him an excuse to send me packing and I'm not sure where I'd go, if the worst came to the worst I could try squatting I s'pose, but I'm not sure how you go about finding somewhere and to be honest I've never really fancied it either.

"I know, but it's what I'm here for, so what do you want?"

"What did you have?"

"Coco-pops" He raised his eyebrows at me, I don't know why, the coco-pops are mine, I bought them with me "Do you want some?"

She's just offered me some of her un-fucking-believably unhealthy breakfast cereal which, when you think about it was actually pretty nice of her in the circumstances, even if eating crap like that would mean that I'd have even more of a struggle to get any sort of fitness back. I really am going to have to try and start again with her, she's going to be here for a few days at least and I know I behaved like a total arse yesterday and it wasn't her fault that I was so annoyed with my mother. Mum seems to see the wheelchair as some sort of evidence that I've regressed to being a child that needs help to run my life, but I had to bite my lip when I pictured the expression on her face if she could see me eating rubbish to please the home help.

"Haven't had coco-pops for bloody ages, mmm" Actually to tell the truth, I'd forgotten how good they do taste, mind you, I haven't had them since I was a kid staying in someone else's house, we didn't do sugar drenched goodies in our house, so I found myself smiling at her and she smiled back. Was it me that thought she was quite pretty yesterday? When she smiles like that she's very pretty, got the most amazing green eyes, so pretty that I was reminded that I haven't had any female company for a bloody lifetime, well except for nurses who moonlight as torturers, and even though she's far too young not to mention totally inappropriate.

"Look, Dawes, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot yesterday, so I think we should start again if we're going to live here together for a little while"

Bloody hell he's only apologising, well I think that's what he means, I can't be sure, but I was right about how he looks when he smiles. Mind, what the fuck is all this 'Dawes' crap? It might be something to do with him going to a posh school or being in the army, or some'ing, I dunno, but it actually sounds a bit like that Upstairs Downstairs, the one what's Nan's favourite, so maybe his family are sort of like that, got butlers and servants and all that crap, but I do find it a bit odd.

We spent quite a little while going over what I was s'posed to be doing, and he didn't seem to have any more of a clue than me, except for telling me that he don't like tea, only coffee and not the instant stuff I call coffee, and he calls muck. Well he's posh isn't he? Only drinks that Nespresso stuff what comes in them little capsule thingies, so I'm gonna have to buy some tea bags. Apart from that, he just shrugged and told me that I should do whatever I thought needed doing, like the beds 'n polishing 'n that but to keep things really tidy and to put things back where I found them.

I think he might have that OCT or OTD or whatever it is they call it when someone has to have everything put back in the same place and keep insisting that clean stuff is cleaned over and over. I wanted to ask him but I didn't want to get up his nose when he's obviously trying hard to be a bit nicer, so I'll carry on doing stuff that don't need doing and cleaning stuff that's not dirty, but I think I'll try and find a bookshop or whatever where I can get something I can actually enjoy reading otherwise I might end up going mental with boredom.

He give me some money to go shopping for food but said he weren't fussy when I asked him what he likes to eat, so that I was dead tempted to tell him I'd only buy stuff that wouldn't stink the place out, but I didn't cos I'm not sure of how much of a laugh he'd be up for.

-OG-

I think I might have judged her a bit harshly when I decided she was some sort of useless teenager that would want to be out binge drinking and clubbing every night, she left her book on the kitchen table when she went off to sort out my bedroom and bathroom and she's reading 'Catcher in the Rye' which I wouldn't have guessed would be to her taste at all. Just goes to show how you shouldn't judge on appearances or first impressions although I didn't even give her a chance to make a first impression before I made a judgement. Even her voice doesn't grate on me in quite the same way as it did yesterday, although she says stuff that leaves me needing a translator, but I'm not sure whether that's because it's some sort of cockney slang that I don't know or she's just making it up.

-OG-

He was out when I got back from the shops and he'd never said he was off out or where he was going, still I s'pose he doesn't have to it's none of my business, and then when he came back in he looked bleeding knackered and went off to his bed without saying anything much at all. In spite of his wheelchair and that nurse this morning I'd sort of forgot that he's only just out of hospital, but I remembered this afternoon when I put me head round the door to see what time he wanted dinner and saw that he was flat out asleep and so bloody pale that he looked like he was dead or something. I didn't know whether to wake him up or to let him sleep, I wasn't sure whether I should check if he was still breathing or not, or maybe get him a cuppa or something, but I don't know how to use that Nespresso thing so I just shut the door and went back to the front room and put the tele on. I was going to have another bash at me book, I'd decided not to buy something else till I've really given it me best shot, but there is only so much culture I can do in one day, so I watched 'Pointless' instead.

-OG-

I know I have to do these counselling sessions, the army bloody insisted as a condition of living out while I wait out to go into Headley for rehab but they really are exhausting. Dawes was back when the taxi dropped me off but it was all I could do to get on the bed and then almost pass out, I was so bloody tired. I know she came in at some point, or put her head round the door or something, but I couldn't even get up enough energy to open my eyes let alone speak to her.

It was the smell of something cooking that woke me up and I'd just realised that I was famished when she knocked and asked whether I was awake and decent before she came in and then asked whether I wanted to have supper in bed, which was really kind of her, especially when I consider what I was like yesterday. She pulled a bit of a face when she put the tray on the bed and I said my 'thank you speech' as she told me not to get too excited because she wasn't Nigella which made me laugh so I asked her if she'd like to get her tray and come and eat with me while we had a chat, only if she wanted to that is.

He looks a lot better now he's woken up, well a lot less like a corpse anyhow, and he was nice about the food I dished up, I wouldn't describe it as something I'd cooked exactly, more like something I'd heated up, but it tasted okay and he invited me to eat it with him, which was a lot more friendly than he was last night. I actually found it was quite easy to sit and chat with him, he isn't nearly as snotty as I thought he was, although it was a bit weird sitting next to a really fit looking bloke who's lying in bed but who's actually me boss, still …..

"Are you enjoying the book? You know, Catcher"

Oh shit, what the shitting hell is he talking about? I didn't know I was s'posed to enjoy it for fuck's sake, can't we change the subject, talk about the weather or some'ing?"

"Umm, well not really"

I didn't want to lie cos he might ask which bit I'd enjoyed the most, and I've started the bloody thing three times now and I still don't know what the fuck it's all about, which means I'm gonna look like a complete prannet when I can't answer him "I'm finding it a bit hard to get into to be honest"

"Why are you reading it then?"

"Dunno, thought I'd give it a go, didn't I?"

"I wouldn't bother if you're not enjoying it, what do you like to read?"

Oh shit, don't ask me questions like that, I don't think I've actually read a whole book since I was at school, and probably not even then, well apart from Bridget Jones and stuff and I can't say that can I? and as I never went to school if I could help it, I can't remember any of the names of anyone what wrote anything.

"Lots of stuff, what about you?"

-OG-

 **A/N: Thank you for your reviews, I had a lot of fun writing this and I really hope that people have fun reading it. Next update will be on Monday, (R/L gets in the way sometimes) so I hope everyone has a nice weekend. We've got a new puppy so I shall be spending the entire weekend following her around wiping up pee and poo! As CJ would say, 'lovely'**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Anyone can tell**_

 _ **You think you know me well**_

I have to be honest and admit that sometimes she irritates the fuck out of me, she makes me want to scream because she's being so bloody annoying and exasperating but I will admit that I'm extremely curious about her, I mean, I was convinced to start with that she'd only last about a week at the most, but it's been over three weeks now and she's still here, shows no signs of wanting to piss off yet. As well as answering back all the bloody time, she is one of the most gobby people I've ever met and that includes the hundreds of squaddies I've had dealings with over the years, and there is a long list of things she doesn't 'do', classical music, books other than chick-lit, films other than rom-com, serious stuff on television, but, and it's a big but, she's very kind and surprisingly good company. She makes me laugh, which is pretty rare in itself these days and it's not always deliberate, it doesn't hurt that she's also very easy on the eye, very pretty.

She was right when she said that she's no Nigella, after a couple of disastrous experiments which ended up in the bin, we've settled for edible but the expression on her face when she concentrates on 'cooking' is one of those unintentional things she does that make me want to laugh out loud. She's far from stupid, so why the hell she spends so much time telling people she is, putting herself down the way she does, I've got no idea, but I do find it so irritating that I want to get hold of her and shake her. I'm not sure that she really feels that she's totally useless at everything the way she makes out or whether she's got into the habit of getting in first before anyone else has time to say it, but it is _so_ bloody annoying.

I don't actually have to use the wheelchair in the flat any more, apparently my stomach wound has healed up sufficiently so that I can manage the elbow crutches now which means that I'm supposedly making good progress with my leg as well, or so they tell me, but sometimes the amount of effort I have to put in to hide the way everything still hurts so much is exhausting. Everyone keeps telling me not to over-do it, that there is no rush and to take my time and even to use the chair when I'm totally knackered, everyone except Molly that is, she never makes any comment at all.

"How did you end up here clearing up after me?"

"Well, had a bit of a problem at the nail bar where I was working, didn't I? They got closed down by the health people" she started to giggle as if the memory was funny although I'm not so sure it was "Because believe me Boss, this isn't what I had in mind when I left school, mind, working in that bloody nail bar weren't either"

"What did you want to do when you left school?"

"Well, actually I never left school as such, I mean I never went that much in the first place so I couldn't leave, could I?"

"What, you didn't go?"

"Couldn't you tell?"

"What about your exams?"

"Ahhhhhhh" she shrugged her shoulders "I never got none of them, did I?"

"Well, I suppose you don't need GCSEs to do this sort of thing, do you?"

"Nah, but you do bloody need them to do anything else, you know, to get like a proper job"

"It's not too late; you could always give it another go"

"I never 'ad a go in the first place, they reckoned it'd be a complete waste of everyone's time seeing as how I never turned up to any of the lessons or nothing, so …" She did that expressive shrug again, the one that she is so good at, I have a feeling that she's had a lot of practice at shrugging to show that she's not in the least bit concerned.

"What would you like to do, you know, if you could?"

"I did think that I would quite like to be a nurse, until I found out that you need shed-loads of exams for that and I don't wanna be a ward maid or nothing, so this'll have to do me at the moment"

"If you joined up, you know, joined the army, you could do some sort of medical training, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't need rows of GCSEs to do that"

"What, be a soldier? Me? Like you, you mean?" She seemed to find something particularly hilarious about that suggestion and I can't say I was altogether sure why "You're 'aving a laugh aren't you?"

"No, stop laughing, it's not funny, I was actually being serious"

"Can you imagine me marching up and down wearing them boots and then" she pointed at my crutches "I might end up getting shot like you, I don't think so mate"

We was having this little chat while I was dusting all them bleeding photos and stuff that don't need dusting and he was practising walking up and down the room on his crutches. Sometimes I can see that it really hurts him to walk, but he won't give in and have a rest or use his wheelchair, stubborn bugger. I don't say nothing cos it's none of my business and anyhow I think he's most likely got enough people nagging at him all the time, telling him that they know best what's best for him, and then he suggested that I should think about joining the bloody army, as if!

I am gonna have to think about what I am gonna do next, he's obviously getting better all the time and it won't be long before I'm out on me ear, but join the bloody army? That's a good idea innit? I could end up on crutches or in a wheelchair like him or worse and my family don't have the sort of money you need to pay for private nurses or someone like me to look after things. Sometimes I wonder whether he's got a bloody scoobie what it's like to live in the real world like the rest of us. That's the thing about rich people and I think he's most likely rich as well as posh, well compared to me he is, they sort of expect everything to be easy, you know, for things to go their way, whereas people like me expect things to go to shit, and they usually do.

I know he's a soldier and I know he's been all over doing all sorts and been brave 'n that, well I don't know that for a fact, but he's most likely a hell of a lot braver than anyone else I know, but I bet he never had to hide from debt collectors when he was a kid, or had to pretend to be out when the rent bloke knocked for his money.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Go for it Dawes"

"You know all this putting things back in the same place and being extra tidy 'n that?"

While we was having our nice little chat I thought I'd just mention that I'm totally pissed off of moving things around and pretending they need dusting, then dusting them, then putting them back where they was before I started, as if I've done anything at all except move them from A to B and then back again.

"Yeeesssss?"

"Why am I doing it? I mean, have you got that ODT or whatever it is they call it, where stuff being all over the shop means you freak out?"

"No" He burst out laughing at me, I've noticed he seems to do quite a bit of that these days "and I think you mean OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder … and I definitely haven't got it" he was still laughing as he sat on the sofa and put his crutches down then rubbed his neck like he does when he's gonna explain something "It's just that when you've been in the army for years and you've been taught all this routine, you know, how important it is to keep things organised and tidy and to never allow things to be out of place, it's hard to change the way you do things … "

"Try"

"What?"

He's frowning at me now as if he weren't sure he understood what I just said "Go on, live a bit dangerous, put something back in the wrong place" I couldn't help it, I'd started to piss myself laughing at him, what a load of bullshit.

"I have no idea what you're talking about Dawes, or what's so bloody funny, but you can put anything anywhere you like, as long as it's tidy, I don't give a shit"

Even as I'm saying it to her I'm not 100% sure that what I've just said is entirely true, since I got injured I'm much more comfortable if everything around me is organised and under control and where it should be. I have this vague memory of Rebecca, years ago now, accusing me of being a neat freak who drove her up the wall, mind you, at that time everything I did got on her nerves.

"Tell me about being in the army"

"What do you want to know?"

"I dunno, what made you join up? I mean, I bet you had 'undreds of exams"

"Well, not hundreds exactly but all I needed, yes. When I was at boarding school I was in the OTC which meant that I was a cadet in the kind of junior army….."

"I think I saw something on tele about that, at one of them public schools, Harrow or somewhere, loads of schoolboys marching up and down play-acting at being soldiers, is that what you mean?"

I could have done without the giggle that accompanied the question, but on the other hand it probably does seem a bit daft to those who've never had any dealings with public schools.

"No, well yes, I suppose it was a bit, but it wasn't supposed to be play-acting, it was all about seeing whether you liked the idea of being in the army, and I did, like it I mean, so then when I was at University I carried on doing OTC and then decided to go to Sandhurst when I'd got my degree, to try to be an officer. Sandhurst is where you go"

She nodded and I wondered whether I'd just patronised the fuck out of her by assuming that she wouldn't know about Sandhurst "I've always wanted to be in the army and I haven't changed my mind, even after all this" I pointed to my leg and found that I was actually telling the truth, that all the thoughts I'd had about resigning my commission and moving on had just been a reaction to everything, to the pain and disruption and to the feeling I have that this was all my own fault. If I could get fit again so that I wasn't irrevocably tied to some desk job then I would carry on.

"How did that 'appen?" She pointed at my leg.

"It was my fault, I was careless"

She'd given up pretending to clean stuff as she'd pointed to my leg and then sat on the other sofa tucking her bare feet under her as she gazed at me, she really has got the most incredibly beautiful eyes, huge and greenish coloured, a bit like a little fawn or something, so I started telling her about Afghanistan and about what happened. What it had been like on my first tour when I was a green 2nd Lieutenant who hadn't got a clue what was waiting for me, the long periods of utter boredom followed by short bursts of absolute bloody terror, the feeling of being responsible for keeping other people safe, the heat, the discomfort, the horrible conditions, the god-awful army rations and the wonderful camaraderie of being part of a team which was like nothing I'd ever experienced before, or since for the matter. Then the second tour, which was pretty much the same as the first, except that this time I knew what to expect so I wasn't as green any more, and maybe because of that, it was marginally less terrifying.

The third tour, when it had all gone to shit, when a Taliban sniper had shot Geraint Smith in the neck and killed him, and the moment when I knew I'd failed, that I hadn't done my job properly, that I hadn't kept everyone safe. I mean I had my reasons for going back again after that, but I found myself telling her how it had felt to be back there, to be back at a FOB, and about all the difficulties I'd had in sleeping and the feeling that I was pushing my luck so that maybe I shouldn't have signed up for that fourth tour.

"It don't sound like any of it was your fault, I mean, why would you even think that?"

"There was this mission to get this insurgent and we were on a bloody bridge in the middle of nowhere and I was in charge when one my men started freaking, actually it was Dylan Smith, Geraint's twin brother, and I let myself get completely distracted by him so that when the insurgent opened fire on the patrol there was nothing I could do about it, I was out in the open and he shot me. He shot Smith as well, but luckily that was only a flesh wound. One of the others took him out, the insurgent I mean, shot the fucker through the head, but I didn't know much about it by then, it was a while before I knew anything about anything after that, not till I woke up in hospital in Birmingham. I was responsible, Molly, it was my responsibility to make sure that everyone got home safely and I failed"

"Shit" She was trying hard to smile at me, even though her eyes looked suspiciously blurry as though she was very nearly in tears "I still don't see as how you make that one out, I mean how was that your fault? Anyhow, the rest of them did get home safely, didn't they? It was you what got hurt, well, you and that Smith bloke, but he weren't badly hurt like you, was he? Anyhow, I'm gonna make us a cuppa" she uncurled herself from the sofa looking for the minute as though she needed to escape, then stood up and managed a proper smile at me "and you think I should join the bloody army, do I look stupid or what?"

It's been months since that day on that bloody bridge and I've had de-briefs and counselling and all sorts of 'helpful' crap since then, with all sorts of clever sods telling me that I need to accept that it wasn't my fault, and that I must stop blaming myself, but this was the first time I'd really talked about it to anyone without the feeling that I had to be careful what I said in case I was being judged, in case it was going to go on my record, so it was the first time I'd been honest.

-OG-

When he was talking about what happened to him it made me want to cry, cos I could see from his face that he hasn't got over it, that it don't matter what anyone says to him, he still feels like it was his fault which is pretty bloody stupid really. It weren't his fault that some bastard decided to shoot at them or even that they was there in the first place, he's in the bloody army and they have to do what they're told, but the thing was that if it had been anyone else telling me all that, you know a mate or someone, I would've given them a big hug, I really wanted to give him a hug, but …"

"Coffee" I put it down on the table and looked to see whether he still had that sort of distant, faraway look on his face, which he hadn't, he seemed to be back with me so I asked him what he wanted to eat.

"Do you like Thai?"

"Yeah, but I've got a funny feeling I won't be able to cook it"

"I thought we deserved a treat, that we'd get a take away"

"Oi, are you criticising my cooking again?"

"Would I?"

"Yeah" I smiled at him and he smiled back, God I was right about his smile "Then we can maybe watch some tele, I'm sure there must be some meaningless crap, some Big Brother or some'ing on one of the channels" I was getting back at him for the comment he'd made when he came in the previous day and asked whether I ever watched anything that wasn't meaningless rubbish, cheeky sod.

"Okay Dawes I get the message"

"Could you do me a favour please Boss?"

"What?

"Could you bleeding well pack it in calling me Dawes, me name's Molly, I thought you knew that and you keep calling me Dawes makes me feel like I should salute you or bow or some'ing"

"Not even Dawsey? You're saying that I'm not even allowed to call you Dawsey? I'll tell you what, though, a curtsey sounds like a great idea"

"Piss off" She grinned at me "It's Molly, me name's Molly, Boss"

"Okay then, Charles, my name's Charles"

"Yeah I know"

"What's so funny then? It's not funny, what the hell are you smirking for? Or are you going to call me Boss forever?"

"Probably, cos calling you Charles feels a bit, I dunno, you know? ….. and I don't know if I can"

"You will if you want me to call you Molly"

"Okay …. Charles"

-OG-

 **A/N: Thanks for your reviews and your kind comments, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

 **Thank you also for your good wishes for the newest member of our family. We're all besotted with her, but as sleep deprived as we were all those years ago when the kids were new babies. How can one teeny tiny 'pee and poo' machine make such a bl**dy racket when we go to bed and she realises she's on her own?**


	4. Chapter 4

_**I can hardly speak**_

 _ **My heart is beating so**_

It's been six weeks now and her majesty the Duchess has visited the last couple of weekends as usual, but she's hung about a bit which she never used to, I've got a feeling she don't approve of us being friendly although she hasn't got anything to worry about. Yeah, we're getting on okay and I'm really gonna miss him and living here when it comes to the end, although I have starting making some plans which is not like me, but I'd be kidding meself if I thought there was any chance of there being more between us than what there is. I remember what I thought the first time I clapped eyes on him and I still think he's drop dead gorgeous, probably one of the best looking blokes I've ever seen, and he really isn't the total arse I thought he was, but I have to be very careful not to think about him as anything more than me boss and maybe a sort of friend, because if I do I get very sort of uncomfortable when I'm around him. He's way out of my league and I don't wanna do anything to spoil my last few weeks here, like jump him or something cos that would be really stupid.

"Hey" I didn't see it straight away, mainly because I do try not to look at him too closely these days, just a quick glance then look away cos I'm shit scared he'll be able to tell, but I had to when he asked me straight out if I'd noticed "Notice anything? God, you're so unobservant, it's just as well you're not in the army"

"What am I s'posed to have noticed?"

"No crutch"

"Oh yeah, that's good innit?"

"You might sound a bit more pleased"

"I am pleased for you, course I am"

I'm telling the truth, I'm really glad that he's getting there but what the bloody hell does he expect? He seems to have forgot that once he's properly back on his feet, can manage the stairs 'n that, he'll be off home back to Bath or into Headley Court and I'll be down the road on me bike, so I'm hardly gonna be thrilled am I, however bad or selfish that is.

"Come on, tell me what's wrong" I really thought that she'd be happy to see the back of the crutches, I know I am, but I know her well enough now to know when something's not quite right.

"You'll be off home soon and I'm really, really pleased for you, I am, honest, but it means I'm gonna have to look for something else, I don't wanna end up in another nail bar and I don't want to start burning people's skin off again"

"Are you trying to get rid of me? Stop talking about going off to torture people, it'll be a few weeks yet before I can even think of going home or anything like that happens, so let's stop worrying about it and go and watch some mindless drivel instead"

I have got no idea what I'm going to do about her, I hate the thought of not seeing her face light up when she laughs or the look she gives me when I take the piss out of her, or of not being able to watch her when she's concentrating on something and doesn't realise that I'm there and the way she colours up when she does notice me looking.

I got a lecture from my bloody mother last weekend about being careful about distances and boundaries and other bloody rubbish, so I guess she must have noticed that I have got very fond of Molly, that I'm drawn to her, and mum's probably right when she talks about different worlds, although I wouldn't tell her that, but what Molly just said about having to leave is the first clue I've had about how she feels, because most of the time she doesn't even look at me properly.

The thing that does worry me a lot is that I haven't said anything to her at all about Rebecca, or Sam for that matter, and I don't think my mother can have mentioned them, because Molly has certainly not said anything to me that would indicate that she knows. I don't know why I haven't said anything, it's just that the subject has never come up.

We talked about her family today, or at least she did, I just listened. She talked about her mother who sounds about as far removed from mine as it is possible for two women to get, even bearing in mind that her mum is a lot younger, but she sounds nice, if a bit downtrodden, which would explain Molly's fierce determination to be independent. She talked about her grandmother who has obviously passed on her 'stroppy' genes to her granddaughter, together with a slightly weird sense of humour and she talked about her brothers and sisters, of which there appear to be several hundred. She obviously misses them all dreadfully and loves them all dearly and I envy her.

I used to long for a sibling when I was a kid, not a sister because I didn't know anything about girls when I was a kid, I didn't even know any so they were a totally alien species, but I wanted a brother desperately. He'd have to be younger so that I could boss him about of course, but still a brother to play with when all my friends were busy doing other stuff and to share things like Christmas and family holidays.

She only talked a little bit about her father, who she called the 'fuckwit' and her relationship with him, makes my relationship with my dad look almost close. My dad spent most of my childhood as an 'absentee' father, he felt like a stranger who popped in and out of my life. I know now that it was not his choice, but because he's in the diplomatic corps, or he was, he's retired now, and he was always being sent to places which mum considered outlandish or unsuitable for me, but I wonder now whether that was because she didn't fancy them herself.

I am very aware of the way I felt as a child when I think about Sammie, both being an only child and having a father he rarely sees, I haven't seen him for months now because Rebecca uses my access time with him as a stick to beat me with for my failures as a husband.

Molly reckons her dad has done his level best to fuck her life up, she says he's drink dependent, or anyway spends a hell of a lot of his time and what money he has got in the pub or just plain pissed and that keeping her off school or allowing her to stay at home to help with whichever was the newest baby is just one of the things she blames him for. Now that she's grown up she doesn't want anything more to do with him, which is very sad. I really felt like giving her a hug to try and wipe that expression off her face.

-OG-

I talked a bit about my lot today and it made me homesick for mum and the kids, but it's a home that I'll never live in again, no matter what happens when Charles goes home and I leave here, I won't be going back there. I was beginning to get a bit, well you know, so I needed to change the subject and there was one of them old films on Film 4, so I told him that I'd read about it in the paper and that I wanted to watch it.

"Oh Christ, not another one of your creaky old black and white things?"

"You were the one what told me to watch old films, and anyhow they're not creaky, they're classic"

"Who says?"

"Clever blokes, well the one what wrote the blurb in the paper anyhow"

"Oh well must be true then"

"Sarky bugger"

-OG-

I've gotta admit that he was right, these people in the film, which was so old it was all sort of grey and grainy which made it bloody hard to see what was what, they was all talking as though they had marbles in their gobs, all terribly posh and I'm sure they was reading it from a script that we couldn't see. He was being really bloody annoying and laughing and picking holes in everything they was saying and then wouldn't shut up about the way they was saying it, so I started arguing with him, not because I thought he was wrong, he wasn't, but because I was actually enjoying bickering with him and getting up his nose. He still don't seem to realise when I'm winding him up.

We were having this great long squabble about whether someone would actually say "Hi honey, I'm home" when they come in through their own front door. He reckons it was pretty bloody stupid because it was obvious who had come in, they had a key, and who else would just walk in and where else would they just let themselves in like that, except their own home? It took quite a while for me to realise that he was only winding me up and that was after I started arguing with him for the sake of it and that actually I agree with him that it's a pretty dumb thing to say.

"It's just one of them things that people say, innit?"

"Not the people I know"

"Smartass"

-OG-

I wanted to wipe that slightly lost expression off her face when she finished talking about her father, so I was deliberately winding her up when we were watching this dreadful old film, I was trying to take her mind off the discussion about her family, but then she started getting annoyed with me and sometimes I really do find it very hard not to laugh at her when she does that. Not that the film was in any way watchable, it wasn't, it was absolutely bloody dire, terrible cut glass BBC type accents, wooden acting, if you could call it that, and a non-existent plot, it all combined to make a film that was almost funny it was so bad. Molly argued with everything I said, although I could see that she was now arguing for the sake of it and was struggling to keep a straight face as she pretended to be enthralled by the film, she just wasn't going to admit how bloody awful it was. Sometimes she can be as stubborn as me.

Eventually I shut up and started reading my book, or trying to, but I could tell that she was bored stupid by the film, anyway we'd missed most of it when we were arguing, so I don't think she had a clue what was going on, but just wasn't prepared to give in and switch it off. I was also very aware that she kept flicking little glances in my direction and then looking back at the screen really quickly because our eyes kept meeting as we glanced at each other at the same moment and then both of us smiled and looked away as if we were having a conversation without any words.

Every instinct I've got was telling me to just go over there, put my arms round her and kiss her and there was something about the way she kept looking at me that told me that she wanted me to do exactly that, but it wouldn't end there and I wasn't sure any more where it was heading. Well, I know where it would be heading at that moment, but it was the long term I was getting concerned about.

-OG-

I went to make a cup of hot chocolate after that bloody film finished, God it was absolutely bleeding awful, but I wouldn't turn it off before it was done because I was suddenly worried about what I would do next. I knew he kept on looking at me and the look on his face and his smile meant that I had to keep reminding meself that I'd made a resolution that I wouldn't jump him cos it would most likely be the most stupid thing I could do, and anyhow what if I was wrong, what if it was just me what felt like that, how bleeding awkward would that be?

I never went back in the sitting room after cos I could hear him watching the news and I wasn't sure what I'd be going back in there for, so I just called out that I was going to bed to read and that his hot chocolate was in the kitchen and not to let it get cold. He shouted something back like "Yes Mum" and I laughed and went to me room and closed the door, then spent more than an hour lying there on the bed wondering whether he was gonna knock and come in or whether I could get up enough guts to go and knock on his.

-OG-

I slept badly so it was really early when I went in the kitchen to make a cuppa, not even properly light yet. I thought about getting some breakfast , maybe eating some coco-pops, he's been making me try different stuff, but none of it tastes as good as coco-pops, but I was still all churned up inside so that I didn't know if I was hungry or felt a bit sick so I was checking to see if I'd got any e-mails instead when he made me jump out of me bleeding skin. I thought he was still asleep cos I couldn't hear him moving about and he's normally a noisy bugger in the mornings, crashing about putting that Nespresso thingy on, he don't ask me to do it no more, not since he had to buy a new one cos I forgot the water and buggered the other one.

"Okay?"

"Shit, you scared the shitting daylights out of me, what you doing up so bleeding early?"

"Sorry, I could say the same to you, couldn't you sleep?"

I shrugged, I really, really didn't want to talk about why it had taken me a week to get off last night and why I'd kept waking up during the night and had been wide awake at the bloody crack of dawn. Mind I felt really awkward standing there in the kitchen in me knickers and 't' shirt because whatever it was I felt had been there last night was still bloody there wasn't it.

"Molly, I wondered if you'd like to go out tonight, with me I mean? We could go out and get something to eat"

"Are you having a go at my cooking again?"

"Of course" he laughed "What do you think?"

"I'd love to" Is he kidding, what did he think I was gonna say? NO? "Are you sure you're up to it?" Oh well done Molly, suggest it's not a good idea, why don't you? magic ….. not!

"Of course I am, I'll have a rest this afternoon, just to make sure I don't fall asleep in the soup so that you won't have to carry me home, okay?"

"Okay"

-OG-

I didn't sleep well last night, my mind kept turning over with 'what if' and 'if only' so that when I heard her moving about at sparrow's fart, I gave up trying to get any more sleep and got up to make a coffee. I knew she wouldn't make it for me, she won't touch the bloody thing since she wrecked my old one, not that I cared particularly, it was temperamental and it'd had some pretty hard use, a lot of it in a dusty, dirty war zone, so it was about due to be replaced anyway, but poor Molly was horrified, so if I want coffee I have to get up and make it myself.

At some point in the sleepless small hours I'd decided that I would ask her to come out with me for a meal tonight, it would be good to get out of here, to go and eat like a normal couple on a normal date, to go somewhere neutral where we can talk and see whether it's at all possible for us to make any plans. I really can't imagine letting her go out of my life and I don't give a flying fuck what anyone else, and that includes my interfering mother, has got to say about it.

-OG-

I am trying to sleep because I promised her I would while she's out doing God knows what since she says she's worried about whether or not I'm up to going out tonight, I mean I know I'm a lot older than her and I know she's only saying it because she cares, but for fuck's sake, that makes me feel a bit like the 90 year old victim of some geriatric disease.

-OG-

 **A/N: Thank you for your feedback, please keep on letting me know if you are enjoying this.**

 **Lily is a Beagle, I know, I know, everyone kept telling us not to get a Beagle because they're hard to train (try impossible?) but they are a really good breed if someone is allergic to dog hair, like my cockwomble, because they don't shed. She is also adorably pretty or just plain adorable, even if she does career madly round the garden for 20 minutes, and we have a biggish garden, and then decide to come in and pee on the carpet!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**You gave your hand to me**_

 _ **Then you said goodbye**_

It's absolutely hammering down with rain and I really hope it stops before we go out tonight. I'm sure we'll get a taxi to wherever it is we're going, he won't want to walk far with that boot on, but we'll still need to get from the taxi to the restaurant. Its most likely not the best idea for him to get too cold and wet, he's been stuck inside forever, well apart from going to get his dressings changed, and he said that the surgery is always too bloody hot.

I dunno what I'm gonna wear, going out for dinner with someone like him isn't something I'm used to, actually going out for dinner isn't, and I can't make up me mind whether to go and buy some'ing new, cos I don't wanna look as though I've tried too hard, do I? On top of that I've dicked about for ages trying to make up me mind whether to buy some condoms are not, I'm not on the pill and I can't imagine that he's got some somewhere cos he hasn't been anywhere near the shops since he was in Afghanistan, and I can't see his mum bringing him some somehow. I know it sort of seems well previous to even think about needing a condom, even to me it does, but I'm pretty sure that if anything happens between us or he asks me or let's face it, even gives me a bloody hint that he likes me like that, then I won't hesitate. I'm not a tart, whatever anyone else might think if they knew, but I really, really like him and I really, really want to.

The place was silent when I got home, no music on or nothing, so he was obviously still in bed. I hope he managed to get some sleep cos he looked a bit washed out this morning, what me Nan would call 'peely wally' so I called out and said 'Hi honey, I'm 'ome' the thing that we'd bickered about yesterday cos I thought it'd give him a laugh if he wasn't still kipping.

At first I couldn't think where I'd seen her before, but then I did. From the bleeding picture on the mantelshelf in the front room, which come to think of it I haven't seen for a bit, but it was definitely her, the same girl. Blonde hair, pretty face with very blue eyes and it looks like she knows him well, just sitting there looking completely relaxed and happy and at home sitting on his bed, but who the fuck is she and why the fuck hasn't he ever mentioned her?

"Molly" He sounded a bit surprised as though he weren't expecting me and I wish now I hadn't yelled out about was he decent or not when I opened the bloody door, cos it made me look like I was the hired help, which, to be fair, is what I am.

"I'll put the kettle on, make a cuppa" I really couldn't get out of there quick enough as she stood up and pulled her shruggie thing round her almost as though she was going to shake me hand, then sat herself back down again.

"Not for me, thank you, I don't drink tea" she gave this sort of tinkly laugh "Not unless you've got some Lap sang Suchon"

No, funny enough we haven't, but I might have known it, another one with a bleeding posh voice, his world is packed full of them innit? Alright she's most likely not a natural blonde like I first thought, those bleeding highlights cost more than I used to earn in a month in that nail bar, but she's very pretty and she's very well-dressed and she's tall as well, her legs go all the way up to her sodding armpits. Shit, what the hell do I look like next to her for fuck's sake? Titchy and scruffy and me hair all over the shop, all wild and curly from getting wet, and I've got no make-up on and to top it off, I sound bloody common as well.

I left them to it to say their goodbyes or whatever, although she don't show any signs of pissing off just yet, and went and checked to see if I was right, and I was, that photo has disappeared from the front room mantel. I can still hear them chatting, although I can't hear what they're saying cos I closed the door when I left, but fuck, fuck, I can't believe it, I might have known something would happen, I sort of know that we won't be going out tonight after all and that I should never have looked forward to it like that, it were asking for trouble and it was bound to go to shit, everything always does. Just as well I never bought nothing new to wear, mind, I was right when I thought that buying them condoms was a bit bloody previous.

What the hell was I thinking, believing that he'd look twice at someone like me? I should have known that if it hadn't been for him getting hurt and needing a cleaner, he'd never have even noticed me. If we'd met somewhere, which was highly bloody unlikely, I would have been one of the invisibles, one of them people who would maybe serve him in a restaurant or in a bar, but nothing else. The girls he'd be with were the ones like her, tall and blonde with posh voices, mind, it serves me right for seeing what I wanted to see and for adding two and two and making twenty two.

-OG-

"What the fuck are you doing here Rebecca?"

"Well that's a lovely welcome I must say"

She'd just turned up in my room and woken me from a very deep sleep so that for a few minutes I was quite disorientated, not entirely sure what was going on or where she'd sprung from.

"Did Molly let you in?"

"No, there's no-one else here"

"Well then how the fuck did you get in and what the hell do you want anyway?"

"Your mum gave me her key because she thought, and I must say I agree with her, that it was high time I came to see you so that we can sort things out between us before it's too late"

"Why the fuck didn't you call first? Didn't anyone ever tell you that its good manners to call before you turn up?"

"No, well if I'd called you'd probably have refused to see me, and anyway your mother said …"

"You are un-fucking-believable, you know that don't you? And as for my interfering" I couldn't think of a suitable name to describe my mother at that precise moment, so I pulled a face "Of a mother, she can mind her own fucking business as well. There's nothing to sort, we've said all there is to say, we're not getting back together, not now, not in the future, never. The only thing we have to sort out is my seeing Sam, and I don't see him anywhere, so I presume that you didn't bring him with you"

"No, and please don't interrupt like that, I was going to tell you what your mother said"

"Why haven't you bought Sam with you?" I ignored what she said about mum, I can well imagine what mum has said to her and what about.

"He's at school"

"And he couldn't have the day off to come and see me for the first time in bloody months?"

"Perhaps next time"

"There isn't going to be a next time, I keep telling you, there's nothing for us to discuss, nothing to sort out, I'll be back in Bath in a few weeks and then we'll be making some very different arrangements for Sam, you can trust me on that one"

I'd heard Molly come in the front door and yell something about being back and that it was raining but before I could get my act together enough to get up and stall her, to give me time to try and explain what was going on, she asked if I was decent and popped her head round the door. The cow I used to be married to smirked with self-satisfaction and Molly's face fell as if she'd been slapped. I didn't introduce them because Moll sort of backed off and ran away before I had the chance to say anything, not that I'd have known what the hell to say to her, so I just refused to talk to Rebecca any more, held out my hand for the key and told her to piss off, all I was concerned about was getting up and going to talk to Molly. Jesus, what a bloody mess, I needed to find a way to explain about Rebecca and Sam and I wished I'd done it weeks ago, maybe when I took that photograph off the mantelshelf and put it away to give to Sam when he's older.

-OG-

"Are you okay?"

I didn't want to turn round and look at him because he would be able to see that I was a bleeding long way from being okay, so I kept me back turned.

"Who is she?" I was surprised how calm me voice sounded "And why have you taken her picture off of the fireplace?"

There was such a long silence that I turned me head back round to look at him. He wasn't looking at me, he had his head down and he was looking at his feet as he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand like he does sometimes, especially when he's worried about something "Her name's Rebecca and" he paused for a bit as if he was trying to think what to say "She's my wife, or rather she's my ex, we're separated now"

" _Your wife_?"

I could hear the way me voice got screechy, but it was the last thing I'd expected to hear, ex-girlfriend? Yeah, maybe, even current girlfriend? But _wife?_

"You're married? and you didn't think to say?"

Although, come to think of it why the hell should he? I'm his cleaner, what did the Duchess call me? his housekeeper, so it really isn't any of my sodding business, is it?

"I kept meaning to tell you about her"

"Slipped your mind did it? Forgot? Forgot that you was married, that you had a wife?"

"No, of course not, and she's not my wife anymore, didn't you listen to what I just told you? We're separated, we're not married anymore"

His voice had started to get all irritated like it used to when I first knew him, when I used to get on his tits big time, before we was friends.

"Why are you getting all shitty with me? How is any of this my fault?"

"I'm not getting shitty with you" He took a deep breath as though he was trying hard to control himself "Okay, I should have told you about her, but did you not hear what I just said? She's not my wife anymore"

"It's really none of me business is it?"

"Don't be ridiculous, how else do you want me to say this? We're separated"

"But you're not divorced, right?"

"Nope"

"So that means you're still married dunnit?" I couldn't look at him, I was so scared that I would cry, although what I'd exactly be crying about I wasn't sure, maybe wasting me money on condoms, I dunno, or maybe that I was just so disappointed, and what the hell was he doing getting all iffy with me and raising his voice as if I'd done something wrong "What else haven't you told me, what's next, that you've got kids?"

I turned and looked at him as I said it and I saw from the expression on his face and the way he immediately looked down at the floor that I'd just hit the nail right on the bloody head.

"Oh shit, he has"

There wasn't anything more to say, I mean, suddenly I knew that the pictures of that little boy that were there on the table and the one with his mum and dad in the silver frame by his bed, the picture that I'd picked up and looked at and dusted when I was cleaning in there and how I'd thought that the little boy reminded me of someone, were of his kid. His kid that he'd never even sodding mentioned. It's no wonder he'd reminded me of someone.

"I've got a little boy, Sam, he's six" I knew, even though I wasn't looking at him, that his face had gone all soft, the way it does sometimes, I could tell from the way his voice sounded "I love him, he's always going to be a big part of my life"

"Course he is" I tried to smile, I really did and I weren't upset cos he'd got a little boy, okay I weren't delirious about it but only cos he's got all these fucking secrets, things he hasn't told me and I've spent bloody hours in this sodding room telling him all the shit that was my life before I came here, and all about me crap family, so how one-sided is that? I really thought we was close, that he liked me as much as I like him, starting when he told me all about being in the army that time, looks like another spectacular own goal for Molly Dawes.

"Look, I'd better go"

"Don't be stupid, where are you going to go? Come on, Molly, please don't do this, the place won't be the same without you" He come over and put his hands on me shoulders, it was actually the first time he's ever touched me, then he put his hand under me chin and forced me to look up at him. I thought that he was going to kiss me for a second, but he didn't, he just said what he'd already said "Come on Molly, don't do this, where are you going to go?"

"I'd have been gone in a couple of weeks anyhow, you're nearly better so you'd have been going home to Bath soon, it's only doing things a bit earlier than we thought"

I hadn't answered his question, mainly cos I haven't got a bloody scoobie where I'm gonna go, I can't go back to the flat because I still owe them a fair bit of money, and anyhow they'll have let the room by now. I could Facebook some of me mates and see who's up for letting me sofa-surf for a bit, but I haven't really been in touch with any of them for weeks now so it feels like it would be a bit of a bleeding nerve. Looks like I'll have to swallow me pride and go back home for a bit, well to Nan's at least, cos it'll be a few weeks until I can, what is it he calls it? crack on with stuff. All I know is I can't stay here, with him, not now.

-OG-

When she said about this just being a bit early with our inevitable separation I wanted to tell her that I'd been trying to come up with some sort of plan, something that didn't include her cleaning my parents' bloody house in Bath, because believe me that would be over my dead body, but I haven't really come up with a plan yet and I don't think she'll listen right now. I can't blame her for being upset and angry, of course I should have told her, I should never have kept pretending that everything would just work itself out, sometimes being a dick doesn't begin to describe me. I don't want her to go, I can't think about how much I'm going to miss her, miss the sound of someone singing flat and off-key as they do the washing up or dancing around to something they're listening to on their I-pad. On top of that every time I ask her where she's going, she just keeps telling me not to worry and that she'll be fine. I am worried because I know how good she is at avoiding an issue by not answering a question, so of course I'm concerned about where she's going to go.

She was buzzing about collecting all her stuff together and refusing to look at me as I kept having to get out of her way while she packed, then she checked the bathroom and lounge for all the crap that she's scattered all over the place in her one woman mission to turn me from a neat freak into a normal bloke, or so she'd kept telling me when I'd complained about the mess.

Finally she stood there with all her stuff around her and her coat on ready to leave and I tried to get her to see bloody sense.

"Don't go"

"I'd better"

"But why?"

"You know why" She did her best to smile, but those amazing green eyes of hers were suspiciously blurry "Anyhow, I would have been gone in a couple of weeks"

"Not necessarily, we could have sorted something out, we still can"

"No, we couldn't, we can't, you're married"

"No, I'm not, we're not together anymore, I keep telling you, and what are you going to do?"

"I would of told you, when it was all sorted 'n that, when I'd made all the arrangements" she shrugged "I'm sort of doing what you said, I'm joining up, gonna go in the army, you'd just bloody better be right about me not needing exams, otherwise I'll come back and haunt you" She tried again to smile, but it didn't really work that well as she bit her lip "I'm most likely going to stop with Nan for a bit, well that's where I'm going anyhow, I just hope she lets me in"

"Congratulations"

"Well you could try and sound a bit more chuffed for me"

"What about money?"

"I've got me wages, I'll be fine"

I'm not sure what she expects me to say, of course I'm happy for her, I think she's making the right decision, she needs to sort out her world and everything in it, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to hate this.

"I'm going to miss you, Moll, will you text me sometimes or phone and let me know how you're getting on?"

"Yeah, course, I'll miss you too, I mean you haven't always been the perfect boss, been a bit of a bugger sometimes to tell the truth, but you will look after yourself won't you, take care of that leg 'n that"

"Well, you've been the perfect housekeeper"

"No I bleeding well haven't, I don't really do perfect" She smiled at me "Bye"

I can't believe she's gone, in the space of an hour everything has fallen apart. I know she's doing the right thing for her, but Christ I'm going to miss her. She was right when she said that going our separate ways was inevitable, I'll be going into Headley in a couple of weeks, then back to my life, but that didn't mean that we couldn't have sorted something out so that she could be part of it. Why the fuck did Rebecca and my mother think they were allowed to interfere like that, when will my mother wake up and realise that she doesn't always know best what's best for me?

I wanted to kiss her goodbye, I'm not sure if she was waiting for me to do that, but if I had I wouldn't have been able to let her go and we would have been back in this same situation over and over again, because eventually she was going to go and there is nothing I can do about that.

-OG-

A couple of hours ago I was all excited and worked up looking forward to going out with him, and now I'm sitting on this train going back to London and I've got this sort of horrible panicky feeling gripping me in me stomach, I've only known him for about 5 minutes and he was shitting horrible to me for a good bit of that, so why am I in bits that I'm never gonna see him again?

-OG-

 **A/N: Thank you for your reviews, I'm sorry that the 'date' so many of you were looking forward to didn't quite happen, well not yet anyway, but it was never going to be that easy was it?**


	6. Chapter 6

_**I never knew the art of making love**_

 _ **Although my heart aches with love for you**_

If he'd had told me that it was going to be as shitting horrible and as hard as it was, I might have thought twice about what I was letting meself in for or maybe Phase One isn't that bad if you're gonna be a Rupert, I'm not even sure that they have to do Phase One. It's what they call people like him, a Rupert. Actually it sort of suits him, well, it suits what he was like when I first knew him, I'm not so sure about later on, or maybe it was me what changed, I dunno.

When I first went to stop at Nan's it was horrible, I kept on wanting to text or call him every bloody minute of every bloody day and I had to keep telling meself that I mustn't, that he's married to someone else, should have known. That didn't stop it being one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, especially when he sent me a text asking if I was okay.

I did send him a couple of texts from Pirbright telling him that this was all his crap idea and that I hated him and he come back with a "You just need to put more effort in, Dawes" cheeky sod! Apart from anything else he don't have the first idea of how much effort I've been putting in, if I try any harder I'll die, and I see I've gone back to being Dawes again.

I enjoyed it all at first, the getting to know the other people and the weapons training and stuff, even the kit issue, but it did feel a bit strange to have everyone calling me Dawes so that I could see where he got it from now. It was when we really got going with all the physical crap, when I found that I had muscles aching where I didn't even know I'd got muscles that it got really hard and then there was the swim test. I managed to bloody dodge it by pretending I had an upset stomach that day but it was a close run thing, well I couldn't do the test could I? I mean, I can't bleeding swim can I?

I wasn't that lonely, well there wasn't time cos there was always too much to do and I was always too knackered to really miss anyone, okay, to miss him, until the family day at the end of week 7. Most of the others, well, all of them except me, had people who cared enough about them to come and visit, but my lot didn't show of course, they said it would cost too much, but I know that what dad really meant was that it was a waste of his beer money.

It got a bit better after the long weekend break in the middle, the training that is, not things between me and the family, that went totally to shit. People where I come from don't join the pissing army, as me dad kept on telling me, especially not the girls, so everyone looked at me a bit odd when I told them what I was doing, and that included me family who kept on telling me I was barmy. In the end, we had this huge falling out and I marched off in a huff, and, well, I've had sod all to do with them since.

Phase Two meant we had this time away in Wales, doing, you know, adventure training and map reading and canoeing and stuff, and I really, really enjoyed that. We still had to do all that physical training crap, all the running 'n that and I still sent him a text every now and then saying how everything that was difficult or knackering was his bleeding fault and he still kept sending me them back telling me to crack on and get on with it and to stop bloody moaning because I was in the army now, well, not in those words of course but that's what he meant. He never said sorry, but it didn't matter cos I'm bloody sure he knew I was mostly winding him up when I whinged and that I was enjoying meself really.

Week 14 was the biggie, the Passing Out Parade, well they call it the Passing Off, and everyone gets to invite their families to sit in rows of chairs on the parade ground and watch us march past looking all smart in our dress uniforms. I invited my lot, course I did, but I wasn't exactly surprised that they never even bothered to answer, after me last weekend at home I would have been bloody gobsmacked if they had. We practised for bloody hours whether it was raining or not, whether everyone was knackered or not, just marching up and down getting yelled at until we were bleeding perfect, and even then it seemed we weren't perfect enough, so we had to practise a bit more, or a lot more, so that some of us began to think it would be a hell of a lot easier to just line up, get told 'well done' and then be able to piss off on leave before we started our specialist training. I'm going to Crookham at Aldershot to do CMT training, which was what I wanted so I'm well chuffed.

It was a bit taters on the day of the Parade, there was the odd spit of rain and the wind was a bit nippy, although I weren't that bothered, not like some of them who had parents and grandparents 'n that watching, cos I didn't have anyone sitting out there on the Parade Ground. We did all our marching and it seemed to go off really well, I don't know whether it was perfect or not but I don't think was a major screw up, mind you, most of us could have done it in our sleep if we'd had to, we'd practised it so bloody much.

We was all standing to attention and looking straight ahead when I clocked him. I obviously don't know how long he'd been there, but he was just behind all the seats with some other officers, wearing dress uniform and smiling as he looked straight at me. I've never seen him in uniform before, not even combats, only ever in his trackies or his jeans and he looked so, I dunno, different, so sort of 'Rupert-ish' but I couldn't take me bleeding eyes off of him and I felt like a whole cloud of butterflies had landed in me stomach and were flapping their wings about. He never told me he was coming, but I knew, the minute I clapped eyes on him, that he was there for me and I just wanted to run across and fling me arms round him. I might have done it as well, if it weren't for the five million people what was watching, and the fact that the RSM would never, ever have forgiven me if I spoiled his parade.

He obviously knew I'd seen him cos even though I couldn't see his face that clearly I saw his grin get even wider and he caught his bottom lip in his teeth like he does sometimes, then he sort of said something, well he moved his lips and although I couldn't exactly lip read what he said properly I've still got a pretty fair idea of what it was, or at least I think I have. It felt like a week standing there waiting for all them to stop droning on at us, mind, I haven't got a fucking clue what anyone was saying cos I wasn't listening to a single bleeding word, I couldn't concentrate on anything after I'd seen him, all I could think about was this tall bloke with the brown eyes and the dark hair who was standing there looking at me, waiting for me.

Finally _, finally_ , just when I thought they was never, ever gonna put a bleeding sock in it, we was dismissed, told we could join our friends and families and I started to walk towards where he was, I wanted to run but I weren't sure if it was allowed, or whether me legs would let me, they'd gone a bit wobbly, then he started to walk towards me at the same time.

"Hey" He was grinning all over his face.

"Hello" I grinned back, I weren't sure what to say, when I was waiting for them to dismiss us from the parade I'd worked out that it was almost five months since I'd seen him, although it felt much longer, it felt like a bloody lifetime.

"Hello" If anything, his grin got even wider and his eyes were all crinkled up.

"What you doing 'ere?"

I knew I was grinning all over me face as well and I wanted to hug him as tight as I could, and I really, really wanted him to hug me, but he looked a little bit different to the Charles I'd known and I'd come over all shy for some reason, anyhow it's most probably against the rules to throw your arms round an officer when you're both in uniform on the parade ground.

"I came to see if you can march up and down in those boots" He grinned again then snorted a little laugh down his nose "and to see whether you've learned to do as you're told yet, to curtsey when an officer calls you Dawes"

"Piss off"

"That's no way to talk to an officer" He was laughing, and his laugh was lighting up his whole face, well we were both grinning at each other like that, as if we couldn't stop "Where are your family?"

"Ah, now that's a bleeding good question"

"What, they're not here? Not your mum or anyone?" The smile vanished off of his face like someone had switched a light off, and he sounded bleeding horrified as he looked around as if I might somehow have missed them hiding somewhere, although he wouldn't have known who they was if he'd fallen over them.

"Nah, told you me dad was a fuckwit didn't I? And me mum wouldn't come unless he said she could, so, nah, they're not here, none of them. I mean, I did send them an invite but they didn't answer, well, we had a bit of a falling out last time I was home and we haven't exactly spoke since"

-OG-

She was pretty matter-of-fact about it, but it must have hurt like hell that they hadn't bothered to come and watch her today. To be fair, not everyone realises what a big deal 'Passing Out' is, but when you've spent months working yourself to the point of utter exhaustion to achieve something it is quite important. I don't suppose for an instant that she'd told them anything at all about how hard it is, especially for someone like her who doesn't always believe in herself, but even so, to not bother to come today, well …..? I know it sounds patronising, and I don't mean to, but I am so bloody proud of her.

I knew that technically I shouldn't be there but I couldn't possibly have stayed away, she's been on my mind ever since she walked out that day that bloody Rebecca turned up, the day we were supposed to go out together for the first time. I know I've heard from her occasionally, okay she's sent me the occasional text letting me know how she's been getting on, usually to complain and blame me, but it hasn't been anything like enough and ever since that day she's been the first thing I've thought of when I've woken up in the morning and the last thing I've thought of at night and she's taken a fairly starring role in a hell of a lot of my dreams as well. I have missed her so much, and, judging by the expression on her face when she first noticed me standing there watching her today, I think the feeling might well be mutual. Christ I bloody well hope so.

"What now?"

"Well, as your parents aren't here, maybe you could go and get your stuff and we can get out of here, that is unless you want to mingle first and meet parents and say your goodbyes to the one's who'll be going on somewhere else, it's your day, we'll do whatever you want"

"Nah, said all me goodbyes already, so I'd just as soon get out of here. Where we going to anyhow?"

"Somewhere where we can be on our own for a while, where we can have a chat without any bloody audience"

"Charles, you said something earlier, when you was watching me do me stuff out there, what did you say?"

"Did I say something?" She nodded, grinning as I did my best to sound puzzled and innocent at the same time as if I'd got no idea what she was talking about "Well, if I did say something I don't remember what it was, and anyway, how do you know I said something, you couldn't possibly have heard me from there"

"Nah, I couldn't hear you, but I'm a shit hot lip-reader" she smirked.

"Christ, I'd better remember that, hadn't I?"

"Actually all I wanted to know is whether you meant it or not"

"I'll tell you when we get in the car, go on, crack on, go and get your bloody stuff, what are you waiting for? Chop, chop"

"Bossy bleeding Rupert"

We were both laughing as she started to walk off towards the accommodation block and I stood and watched her walk away from me again but this time it was different in just about every way possible, and I knew that I'd got the biggest grin on my face as I turned to make my way to the car park where I'd promised to wait for her by the entrance.

"Oi" She stopped as I yelled and turned to look back at me, still grinning all over her face "What do you mean did I mean it? Of course I bloody I meant it, I always mean what I say"

-OG-

"Go on then" We were sitting in his car waiting for a gap in the traffic so as we could pull out of the car park and go wherever it was he'd planned for us to spend the rest of the afternoon "You promised to say it when we was in the car" I looked at him, I really couldn't stop smiling but then I shrugged and tried to pretend that I didn't think it was that big a deal "Go on, say whatever it was you said earlier"

"You know what I said and I've already told you that I meant it"

"I know, but I wanna hear you say it"

"I'll tell you later, when we get there" He swallowed as if he was a bit nervous, although I could be wrong there cos that don't seem like him at all "Now, where the fuck are we going?"

"I dunno, I thought you knew"

"Nope, I thought we'd be standing around drinking disgustingly warm wine with your family"

"Wouldn't have worried me dad how disgusting it was, as far as he's concerned free would have made it spot on"

"I'm sorry they didn't come today"

"Don't be, I'm not, how the hell would I have explained you?"

"I have no idea" He snorted a laugh down his nose and looked at me sideways as he took his eyes off of the road for a second "So where would you like to go, we could go to a restaurant for some lunch, we never did get our meal out, did we? Or shall we go for a walk or something, you choose"

"Let's go and get some lunch and then go for a walk, I'm bleeding starving, I couldn't really eat me breakfast, I were a bit churned up"

-OG-

"Love you" There was total silence in the car once he'd parked, as he turned and looked at me "That's what I said when you were doing that drill"

"I know, I mean, I read your lips so I know what it was what you said, well I thought I knew what it was anyhow, not that I knew that you loved me, that's not what I'm saying, although I did sorta wonder when I saw you'd turned up, well I didn't wonder whether you loved me or not, I just hoped that's what it might mean, that you did, I mean, like me a lot, or maybe that you do, but I weren't too sure … "

"Molly"

"What?"

"Shut the fuck up"

He put his arms round me and we hugged for the first time ever even though sitting in the front of his car meant that it was a bit hard to get close to him like I wanted to, what with the steering wheel and that box thing between the seats, but that didn't stop him from moving his hands up to hold me face and to run both his thumbs across me cheekbones. Neither of us said a word and I was shaking like a bloody leaf as he bent his head and kissed me, so gentle that me stomach disappeared like I'd got in a really fast lift and I forgot all about being hungry, well for food anyhow, I'm not sure I could eat a thing now anyway.

-OG-

 **A/N: I could always picture his face as he watched her Passing Out parade and could see him mouthing those three little words to where she was standing in the ranks, in fact, this was where the whole initial idea for the story came from. I do hope that those of you who were a bit gutted that the date didn't happen in Chapter 5 have forgiven me, but if it had all gone smoothly then the rest wouldn't have happened.**

 **I have a problem with my tablet computer, google chrome has decided to p*ss off, so have to use the laptop for ff, which means that as I'm out tomorrow afternoon, the next update will be on Monday, I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.**


	7. Chapter 7

_**No, you don't know the one**_

 _ **Who dreams of you at night**_

"Come on then"

He still had one hand cupped round me face and I leaned into it, pressing me cheek into his hand, then he took it away, turned round and started opening the car door on his side. Why the fuck he wanted us to go somewhere I'd hadn't got a scoobie, it seemed to me to be a very bad move to be going anywhere at all, what the hell was wrong with just stopping where we were for a bit even though it was a bit public, or even staying in the car and finding somewhere more private to park?

"Where we going?"

"We're going to get something to eat, remember? I don't want you to starve"

"I'm not hungry any more" He must of heard me as he got out of the car and came round to my side, but the bugger was grinning all over his face as though something were really funny and I just wanted to stamp me foot or slap him or some'ing "And stop bleeding laughing at me"

"I'm not laughing at you" He still had the same huge grin on his face as he leaned over and undid me seat belt, then put his hands out to lift me down the bleeding massive drop from the car to the ground "I'm just happy, okay? And you will be hungry later, so let's go and get something to eat"

-OG-

"How's Sam?"

"He's fine"

"And your Mum?"

"She's fine as well, and my Dad, he's fine, too and the weather's fine, just in case you were going to ask"

"Are you taking the piss?"

"Would I?"

"Yeah"

"Sorry, I'm only teasing you" I smiled at her and took a deep breath before I said any more "And before you ask, I've haven't got a fucking clue how my ex-wife is, because we're not married anymore. It was obviously very important to you, about Rebecca I mean, but my divorce has come through now so all that is ancient history and I can't tell you how glad I am" I paused for a minute then added "and how much I've missed you"

"I've really missed you too" She grinned at me, God, she has got the most beautiful eyes and a gorgeous smile "Actually I don't care anymore, whether you're still married or not, I mean"

"Oh shit, now she bloody tells me" Actually it was probably better that I didn't know before, I'm not sure what I would have done if I had known "What are you going to do with your leave if you are not going to go home?"

"Why?"

"Sorry, you don't have to tell me, I just wondered that's all"

She sounded a bit suspicious about what my motives were in asking, but I was just a bit curious, well, that and the fact that I was going to ask her if she wanted to spend a few days with me somewhere, but I thought I should make sure first that she hadn't got any pre-existing plans in place that I would be doing my best to fuck up if I asked her.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sound all shitty, I were going to stay in a Travelodge for a few days, have a bit of time off before I start Crookham, you know, get a bit of a break from the army and bloody soldiers, and especially from them bossy bleeding Ruperts"

"I see ….. and does that include this bossy bleeding Rupert or would you like to go somewhere with me instead? I've got a few days leave, but only if you want to Molly, I won't mind if you'd rather not"

Why I was lying I don't know, of course I'd mind if she didn't want to, but I also knew that I didn't want to put pressure on her. She hadn't been expecting to see me today and I'd probably gone far too far already when I'd told her that I love her, although judging from what went on a little while ago in the car park I think she's far from indifferent herself. Even so, it was much too early for me to be saying things like that, even if I've been thinking about it for months.

"Course it don't include you, I'd love to go somewhere with you, where shall we go?"

"Well, we can see if they've got a room here while we decide where we want to go, it's a pretty decent hotel I believe"

"They're not expecting us are they?"

"No, we'll ask and if they haven't got a room they'll just tell us to piss off and we'll think again, we'll find somewhere else"

For a minute she'd sounded very doubtful so she obviously wondered whether this was what I'd had planned all along, and I don't blame her, that was exactly what it had sounded like, as if I'd always intended to whisk her off to some hotel room for the afternoon. To be fair, it probably wasn't that far from the truth, but not in the way she suspected or the way it had sounded.

Yes, I do want to be with her, and yes, I do want to make love to her, maybe a bit too much and I can't pretend that that's not true, anyway she's probably already got that message from what went on in the car park just now, I don't think she could have missed it, but I meant what I said when I told her that I love her and when I said I wanted to be with her, I didn't mean that I just wanted to take her to bed for an afternoon.

We nearly didn't make it into the hotel at all even to eat, the minute I helped her out of her side of the car I had to pull her into a hug because I needed to put the smile back on her face, and then I couldn't not kiss her, so we'd ended up clinging to each other, leaning against the side of my car in the middle of the car park, both of us still wearing full dress uniform and risking breaking every bloody rule in the book. I knew people were walking past us going in and out of the place, because I was aware of them looking as they walked by, but it didn't matter as much as just holding her and kissing her, even if we were providing entertainment for anyone who was interested enough to look.

I slowly became conscious that we did need to make a move, either into the hotel to eat and calm down a bit or to get back in the car and go somewhere far more private. Like Molly, I wasn't sure that I was hungry any more; in fact I wasn't sure I'd be able to eat anything because other things now seemed to be far more important. I didn't think that getting back in the car would solve anything either, it wasn't the most comfortable place in the world and things were starting to get more than a bit heated. Leaning against my car in a hotel car park in broad daylight definitely wasn't the way I wanted this to be, not to mention that it was incredibly public with people walking past every couple of minutes, so that even if we got back in and the car got nicely steamed up anyone who was curious enough to look in would get a ringside view.

-OG-

He said about staying in the hotel after we'd eaten lunch, although I couldn't eat that much to be honest, me stomach was full of butterflies and all churned up, so it was hard to swallow anything. I have felt like this before when I've thought about him, it used to happen sometimes when I was still cleaning his place, well quite often actually towards the end. I think Charles was feeling the same way cos he never ate much, either that or he weren't hungry, then he asked me whether I wanted to go away with him for a few days instead of staying at a bleeding Travelodge on me own, so that was a really hard choice …. NOT!

Charles went off to the Reception after we'd finished not eating our lunch and did all the talking and filling in of bits of paper and stuff cos they had got a room, and then he flashed his credit card and they didn't even raise their eyebrows at two soldiers in uniform turning up without a booking and looking for a room in the middle of Thursday afternoon, or maybe they're just used to it, we're close to Aldershot here. I stood off to one side and let him get on with it, I've never been anywhere this posh before in me life, let alone stayed anywhere like this, and I really didn't know where to look. I was so bleeding uncomfortable while I was waiting for him cos there was all these people sitting around the Reception Hall and Lounge bit drinking tea and I was sure that they was all looking at me and looking across at him, then nudging each other and smirking.

"They was all looking at me" We was in the lift going up to the room and he'd asked me what was wrong, said he was worried that I was looking down at me feet as if I were dead unhappy "They looked at me, then they looked at you and they was smirking"

"If they looked at you, it was because you're beautiful, and if they looked at me, it was because they were bloody jealous, but I didn't see anyone smirking, Molly, in fact, I didn't even notice anyone looking at us, but if they did, well, I don't give a shit. Look, we can go if you like, if you want to, we don't have to stay here if you're not happy, we can go somewhere else"

We'd got to the door of the room and suddenly it didn't matter no more what them people downstairs thought, I couldn't wait to get into that room to strip off all this bleeding army clobber. I'd felt so smart when I'd put it on this morning all ready for the parade, it had made me feel so, I dunno, proud of meself, as if I'd done really well, and now I just felt as if I looked dead unsexy. His uniform looks okay, mind I think he'd look sexy in anything, but wearing a bleeding skirt down over me knees with them sensible shoes made me feel as if I was dressed like a pensioner and I really wished that I was wearing something lacy and sexy instead of sensible white knickers, big ones as well, wouldn't you bloody know it, and a plain white sports bra.

In the end that didn't seem to matter neither, as soon as he closed the door we were back to kissing each other exactly like we had in the car park, as if we couldn't get close enough, but he didn't just start ripping me uniform off, like I wanted him to, let's face it, like I would have done if it was up to me. He went very slowly and undid all them little buttons on me shirt one by one, stopping and kissing each bit of me skin as he uncovered it, making me want to scream at him to hurry up as I started shaking all over like a bloody leaf. Somehow me skirt ended up on the floor in a heap, I think actually that it was me that undid it, let it drop and then kicked it away, same as I kicked off me shoes and ripped off the bloody horrible tights I was wearing, then he was still kissing me as he lifted me up slightly and I wrapped me legs round his waist. I could feel how hard he was and just how much he wanted me through his uniform and them bloody unsexy knickers I was wearing, as he kept on kissing me over and over so that his breathing got faster and more and more ragged as he carried on kissing me. I pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers at the back and then ran me hands up and down his muscles under his shirt so that I suddenly couldn't seem to breathe properly, I had far too much breath, so that it was chugging in and out, it must have sounded as if a bleeding gale was blowing in his ear.

-OG-

Somehow she managed to end up just wearing her bra and pants and her uniform was spread all over the floor, while I was still fully dressed and as she wrapped her legs around me I knew I was going to have to slow things down a bit, while I still could, otherwise it was going to be over almost before it started and I was going to end up being very embarrassed.

"Molly, Molly, hang on a minute, sweetheart, I've got to slow down a bit"

Some tendrils of her hair had worked their way out of her braid and were now floating around her face so she put her hands up and undid whatever it was that was holding her hair back and off her shoulders, shaking it free so that I could run my hands through the long curls, and that didn't make it any easier at all for me to slow things down.

It wasn't all that long afterwards to be honest that I was lying propped up on one elbow and looking down into the most beautiful face I've ever seen, a face that I was now covering with tiny kisses and which had the most beautifully satisfied smile across it that I've ever seen, a smile that probably matched the one that I was wearing on my face.

"I love you"

"You don't know me, well not really, I mean, you only know the bit of me that used to clean up and cook for you" She was giggling "And that was me on me best behaviour"

"Was it? Shit!" I was going to say something about dreading to see her at her worst and then changed my mind, I wasn't sure she would see that as the joke it was meant to be right now "Of course I know you, we lived together for weeks and I saw you all day every day, and it was the best few weeks of my life"

"Was it? Well, I quite enjoyed it too, once you'd stopped being bleeding shitty to me that is, and why didn't you say nothing when everything went all bloody wrong?"

"I never meant to be shitty to you, and I'm sorry if I was and I thought you knew how I felt, I thought you knew that I loved you, but I should have said something, I know that now"

"Yeah you should of, although I don't know what I would of done if you had, said something to me I mean"

"Well, we're here now so let's stop worrying about things we can't change ….."

-OG-

I'm lying here in this big bed in this lovely room in this posh place and I'm watching him sleep. I've got me legs all sort of wrapped round with his and I'm watching his face while he's sleeping, a face what looks years younger with the little lines all smoothed out and his eyelashes separated into points at the corners of his eyes. His breathing is all quiet and he looks so calm and peaceful.

He says that he loves me and no-one has ever said that to me before, ever, and I'm not sure I know what it even means.

I can still remember how upset I was when I found out about him already having a wife, although I'm wondering now whether I might have over-reacted a bit, it's just that I am so used to things going to shit that I sort of couldn't believe he wouldn't just get back with her when his life got back to normal, especially the way she looks, and that I was just sort of there when he was a bit lonely and fed up. I know that the Duchess isn't gonna be too chuffed with the way things have worked out, if she finds out about it that is. Charles says she'll be okay about everything, but then he's a bloke and he'll see what he wants to see, when it comes down to it I s'pose we can all be a bit like that when we really want something.

And I want him. Well actually, I think I've got him, well, I have for the moment anyhow, and there's a bit of me, even now, that's finding that very hard to believe.

What a bloody amazing day!

-OG-

 **A/N: I didn't think this was going to happen today, we've had no broadband all morning, but fingers crossed ….. Thank you for the feedback for Chapter 6, I'm glad you enjoyed it; I hope you enjoy Chapter 7.**

 **Lily has now got the idea of where she's supposed to pee, so she rushes to the back door and jumps around a bit when she wants to go, only problem is she doesn't leave herself much time so we have to be very quick or there are puddles!**

 **She has discovered the fun of trying to electrocute herself by pulling on plug leads as she tries to get them out of the wall and then totally ignoring the sharp 'NO' when she's removed from the scene by whoever is on puppy watch, she just gives you a very old-fashioned look and goes straight back - Oh well, we'll laugh at this one day.**


	8. Chapter 8

_**And longs to kiss your lips**_

 _ **And longs to hold you tight**_

"Morning sleepyhead" I didn't actually know whether she was still asleep or whether she was just reluctant to open her eyes as she nestled up against me, but I knew she had to be as hungry as I am, neither of us had eaten much at lunch yesterday, she'd said she hadn't eaten much breakfast and we'd missed dinner completely last night "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah" she still hadn't opened her eyes and I stopped trying to control my urge to kiss her, knowing that it would have an immediate effect on me, I'd deliberately waited for my early morning erection to subside before I'd woken her, something which had just become an exercise in futility.

There is something incredible about making love to someone who has only just woken up and is still half asleep, someone that is all warm and drowsy, someone that you love and that you have just spent the night with. Her breathing got shallower and faster and more and more erratic as she began to wake up and to grind herself against me which made it exceedingly difficult for me to wait out. Then, she began to mutter and hold her breath and I watched her face as waves of pleasure swept over her, and any ideas I had about waiting out for her to come back to earth so that I could prolong things disappeared as I realised that it was far too late for that.

-OG_

"I've got to go to barracks or maybe home to Bath and get some clean stuff before we go anywhere or do anything else otherwise I'll stink"

"Too late, you're already minging, mate" She giggled as she pulled a face.

"Thanks" I thought for a moment "I hope you're joking"

"Me? Would I?"

We were having breakfast in a dining room full of people who were sitting over their bacon and eggs in dour silence so that the room had all the ambience of a mausoleum, but the average age the other diners was perhaps sixty or more, so maybe they'd all been married for ever and had nothing whatsoever left to say to each other. Molly who had initially been disappointed because they had no chocolate cereals but was now making do with a full English fry-up, true army style, kept whispering at me across the table so that I found myself whispering back and when I asked her why we were doing it and she looked around the room and gave me one of her expressive shrugs. I had to lean across and kiss her, much to the amusement of the waitress who was standing by us waiting to top up the tea and coffee, although to be honest I didn't even see her there. She obviously didn't mind because she shook her head and smiled when I apologised, but I think, like me, she was too busy looking at the happy smirk on Molly's face and seeing the way she broke into giggles. It probably made a nice change for the woman after the depressing atmosphere in the place, an atmosphere that we were doing our best to ignore.

"I'm guessing you don't want to go to Bath to see my mother" Molly pulled an appalled face at me as she shook her head vigorously making her curls fly around her face and I laughed "It might be best if you don't come into barracks with me this morning, so do you want to wait in the car or wait for me here, read Catcher in the Rye or something?"

"Ha Ha, you're so bleeding funny" She picked up her tea cup, took a sip then suddenly looked very doubtful "I'll wait here thanks, read a magazine or something, but you will come back, won't you? You won't just leave me sitting here, will you?"

"What? Of course not, why would you even think that?" I shook my head at her; it was my turn now to be appalled. I can see that her self-confidence has grown enormously since she joined up, and I must admit that I'd nearly forgotten about that huge streak of insecurity that runs through her, the one that makes me want to put my arms round her and hang on tight until it goes away, although I know that that's not the answer "I'll be an hour, absolute tops, okay?"

-OG-

I went off to sleep quite quickly last night but then I woke up and couldn't get off again and I was lying there thinking how it's really hard to believe that a few months ago I'd never even heard of him and there I was curled up with him watching him sleep. I felt bloody amazing when he made love to me, it **was** amazing, I've never felt anything like it ever before. It weren't like I was a virgin or nothing, but I hadn't been with anyone for more than a year and before yesterday, well, it was sex, it was just sex and when I said about sleeping with a bloke what I meant was that I'd shagged him, I'd never actually slept in the same bed with one before. The ones I went with weren't all one-night stands, but they was always the 'whip it in, whip it out, wipe it off' brigade, and none of them _loved_ me or nothing, and I didn't _love_ them either so the sex was pretty much nothing to write home about. I can't tell you why I used to do it really, I mean, I liked them okay but it was always gonna be disappointing and I knew it, it was just that I was looking for something. I don't really know what, but that didn't matter cos I never found it anyhow.

I don't know whether I love him or not, cos I don't really know what loving someone is s'posed to feel like, I know I wanna keep on being with him and laughing with him and that he makes me feel all safe and happy 'n that. I wanna keep on touching him and I don't only mean touching him like that, I mean just touching him, his hands and his face, and stroking his hair, well, okay maybe other bits of him as well. I sort of stroked the scar on his stomach after we'd made love and I remembered what I thought the very first time I met him when he was in that wheelchair and I'd wondered whether he'd still got all his bits and whether they still worked okay and so I had a little giggle cos I'm so bloody glad he has. He wanted to know what I was laughing at, what was so funny, but I couldn't really tell him, could I?

He shivered all over when I started kissing it, his scar I mean, and then he put his hands down and tried to lift me up and away from his stomach but I ignored him and kissed across from his hip bone towards his belly button and then down that little line of dark hair to, well, you know where, and I heard him give this little groan and when I saw what was happening to him, how much he was enjoying what I was doing, I carried on with the kissing and we ended up having sex for the second time without using anything. I'd told him it would be okay, and it will, I only finished me period the day before yesterday and I can remember being really chuffed that it was over in time for the Passing Out parade, I'm even more chuffed now. We'll have to sort out something different if we're gonna carry on seeing each other though, I don't fancy taking the 'morning after pill' every time I see him, mind, getting up the spout now wouldn't be me brightest move either.

I hope he's not too long coming back for me, it feels like he's been gone ages already. I know he promised 'n that, but I still can't help being a bit twitchy cos I couldn't begin to pay the bill for this bloody place and how the hell would I get to a Travelodge from here cos if I remember rightly this is out in the middle of bleeding nowhere and I'm not sure how much a taxi would be, or whether I've got enough money.

-OG-

My son has just rung and told me he won't be coming home for a few days' leave as he said he might because he's going away for a couple of days break, but he may pop in for tea on his way back. I am saying that he said 'I'm going away' but what he actually said was 'we're going away' and I am sitting here with my fingers and everything else crossed that I am wrong about the identity of the other part of the 'we'. Please God it isn't that girl who is little more than a teenager and far, far too young for him, as well as from a totally different world.

I spent hours talking to Bill about the terrible mistake Charles was making when she lived there with him and Bill just kept on telling me to stop panicking, that even if Charles was getting, or had already got, involved with this girl, it would be a temporary physical liaison which would disappear once his life got back to normal and she was gone. He kept warning me to keep my nose out of our son's private life and telling me that I was over-reacting, that Charles was a normal red-blooded young man who'd escaped death by the skin of his teeth and, as he reminded me, I'd once described her as extremely pretty with a lovely figure, so that there could well be a certain inevitability about things. But Bill didn't see the way Charles looked at her, and I did.

If I'd known what the outcome was likely to be, although I don't know for certain that I'm right yet, I would obviously never have employed her in a million years. At the time Charles was being incredibly difficult and stubborn about needing help and I honestly believed that, given time, he and Rebecca would sort out their differences and get back together, if only for Sam's sake. I don't like Rebecca one little bit, but she's obviously a much better match for him than the Dawes girl could ever be. I did my best to push him towards a sensible decision after I'd visited that last weekend because I'd seen the way his eyes followed the girl as she walked around the place, and the way she'd looked at him when she thought no-one else was watching, so I persuaded Rebecca to take my key and make a surprise visit.

It was an unmitigated disaster, the girl walked out and Charles was obviously livid with me, even though he didn't say a word about it, just treated me to his 'army officer' stern and unbending demeanour, polite but very cold and very distant and, on top of that, Rebecca was upset with me as well so it took an age before the two of us could have a civilised conversation again. Bill said that it served me right for, as he put it, interfering in things that were none of my business and that I'd played with fire and deserved to get burnt but that it could have been far, far worse. If I was right about what was going on, Rebecca could have walked in on them in bed together so I should have thought twice and then thought twice again before giving her a key to his flat.

"Fuck"

I don't swear, it's unladylike, unnecessary and common, but it's the only word I can think of that will do at this moment. My son has just called back to say that he and Molly have decided to spend some time in the Lake District, so he won't even be popping in but will see us the weekend after next when he comes to collect Sam. So I was right, it is that girl he's with. All I can hope is that he comes to his senses and gets her out of his system, heaven forbid that he brings her here with him when he comes to spend time with Sam, Oh God, I need to find Bill.

Charles sounded so happy and so cheerful and so like his old self, so like he was before everything went so horribly wrong for him … but I feel as though I might cry.

-OG-

"Trees give me the willies"

"What?"

"I don't like trees, they give me the willies"

"Why?"

"I dunno do I? They just do, and stop bleeding laughing at me, it's not funny"

"Yes it is, it really is, come here"

I had my arm round her shoulder, I love the way it feels when it's just the two of us with no-one else around. We had walked slowly along the deserted path by the side of Derwent water and then she came out with this gem. I honestly thought that she'd like the sort of empty rural feeling of this place with its lake and it's lovely scenery, but apparently there are far too many trees for her liking and I think she actually means it, so my idea of a beautiful location for a couple of days' away together has gone a bit to shit. That'll teach me, in future I'll make sure to ask where she wants to go and then really listen to her answer and not try to spring surprises.

Mind you it's tipped down with rain for most of the time we've been here and the days have flown by as they always do when you don't want something to come to an end. Why the fuck does time always speed up when you want something to last forever and drag when you're in a hurry for it to be over? We haven't done very much, just spent a great deal of the time talking and laughing, and not much of it sightseeing or anything like that, just eating and spending hours and hours in bed without a lot of sleeping. I do not want to go back tomorrow.

-OG-

We are on our way back to Aldershot in the car and I'm starting me new life tomorrow and I dunno whether I'm scared or not, alright I s'pose I am a bit nervous cos I dunno what to expect, I just hope I don't turn out to be bloody squeamish or some'ing, cos that would be just my pissing luck wouldn't it? Charles keeps telling me I'll be brilliant, that I can be brilliant at anything I put me mind to but I do wish he would just shut up saying it, I know he means well and that he believes it but he's most likely just being a bit biased.

I dunno when I'm gonna see him again, although we get every weekend off, or so I'm told, so it'll be down to when he's off and whether or not he wants to see me. One of me mates, Catherine, texted me the other day to tell me that we get the weekends off, but why they didn't tell us that when we did the Passing Out I dunno, although come to think of it, they could of when I weren't listening cos I'd clapped eyes on Charles, I really don't know, and that's the other thing, I am gonna miss him. It were bad before, missing him I mean, when I thought he was out of me life so I had to get on with things, start sorting everything, but I like being with him, I like sleeping with him and I mean sleeping, the rest is a given, and I like waking up next to him in the morning.

He keeps on saying that he loves me and you know what, that scares me a bit cos I think I might be starting to love him a bit too and I don't wanna be 'in love' with anyone cos if it all goes to shit, and let's face it with my track record of stuffing things up that's highly bleeding likely, I don't know what I'd do.

-OG-

"I'll call you tomorrow, and pick you up on Friday night round the corner from the main guardhouse"

Molly had her 'I don't care, nothing can touch me I'm as hard as nails, me' expression on her face as we sorted out her kit from the boot of the car and she picked up her Bergen ready to go into her new barracks. If it wasn't for the fact that her face is very pale and she isn't meeting my eyes I might have believed that she doesn't care, but I know that she does, or rather I bloody hope that this is just her hard shell, and I would give anything to be able to scoop her up and take her home with me…. well, except that I live in barracks as well.

"Okay"

"You're going to be great and don't forget that I love you and I'll see you in a few days and it'll only be a few months and then you can come and live out with me. I thought I'd go to the estate agent this week and see about finding somewhere to rent, we can look at places next weekend and it'll be somewhere for us to spend weekends while you're at Crookham, if you want to, that is, I mean live out with me"

"Oh I dunno, I reckon you're just looking for a housekeeper" She managed to produce a small smile, the first for ages, the closer we'd got to Aldershot the paler and quieter she'd got.

"Well I don't know about that … the last one I had was pretty crap"

"Oi, she was not, she was the bleeding nuts and you was very lucky to have her"

"I suppose she was okay once I'd got her trained, but then she went and pissed off so I'd have to ask her really nicely to see if she'd think about coming back"

"Go on then"

"What?"

"Ask her really nicely"

"Come here then"

-OG-

 **A/N: I so enjoyed writing this story and to the lovely person, you know who you are, who said that they thought I might be Molly in disguise, all I can say is** _ **I wish**_ **. To spend time with CJ would do me very nicely (wouldn't have to be the Lake District, anywhere would do) isn't that what we all wish, well in our dreams anyway?**

 **Please review for me, they are what keep me going.**


	9. Chapter 9

_**You'll never ever know**_

 _ **The one that loves you so**_

The first three weeks of me training have gone by so fast I can't tell you, and I'm actually really bleeding good at it which is not only some sort of miracle in itself but is a bit of a new thing for me. Who'd have thought that Molly Dawes, bottom of the class, class clown, useless bleeding article and general waste of space, well, according to me Dad, would ever be the one everyone else calls the star, well not me that's for sure. Charles keeps being bleeding irritating, telling me that he told me so, smug git.

I've seen him for a couple of the weekends and we've found a nice little house to rent in Aldershot, well he's renting it of course, not me. He wanted me to go to Bath with him to meet Sam 'n that the other weekend, but I wouldn't go. I'm sure the bleeding Duchess tried really hard and managed not to cry in her soup cos I weren't there and I told Charles that I'll maybe go next time, I were telling huge porkies of course, _never_ sounds bleeding good to me.

Today were a bit of a bummer and truth be told I can't wait to get out of here tonight, I need a hug. I know it was a bit dumb, well it were totally stupid, and I knew it wasn't what I thought, but me period was a bit late, and that never happens to me, so I'd sort of convinced meself that I was maybe pregnant, what with what went on at that hotel on the Hog's back. I'm not, course I'm not, well I knew that really and that's why I never did the peeing on a stick, but me period started this afternoon and I should be delirious, I don't want a baby I want to finish training and be a CMT, so why do I feel all let down, like I'm a bit disappointed?

I can't tell Charles, he'd think that I was lying to him when I said it'd be okay and he'd be bound to think that I was trying to trap him.

-OG

.

I'm dreading telling her what's coming up, but we don't keep secrets from each other, I learned that the hard way a couple of years ago when we hadn't even got together and I didn't tell her that I was still married to Rebecca. I should have told her that this deployment was on the cards, but I didn't see the point in worrying her before I had to, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have mentioned it when all the meetings started and the rumours circulated about our potential involvement. We heard this morning that we're definitely off in about a month and I have very mixed feelings about it.

Being on active service is what I joined the army for, it's what the job is about and when I was injured and thought I might not get back there I was devastated at the thought of never being part of it again. But things have changed enormously in the last two and a bit years and I no longer feel as if I'll be happy living out of a Bergen in some god-forsaken place, or shit-hole as Moll would describe it. And I think Kabul qualifies for that description any day.

We'd been spending most of our time together since she finished training and then when she got posted to 2nd Field Hospital where the old Keogh barracks used to be, she arranged to live out and moved in with me. She was the outstanding recruit in her training group, I'd always believed that she was going to be good when she found her role but even I was slightly surprised at just how good she is, although not half as surprised as she was, and I am so fucking proud of her.

The thing about Moll is that she hasn't changed, she's still just as gobby and feisty as she was when I first met her, which means she still comes home and tells me when her CO has given her a bollocking for something or threatened to put her on a charge for answering back, that her CO talks out of her arse and you know what, she's probably right, and that's one of the reasons I'm bloody glad she's not one of mine.

"I'm sorry, I know I should have told you"

"Bloody right you should of, why do you always think you've gotta hide stuff? I hate it that you don't tell me stuff when you think it'll worry me, it makes me wonder what else you're hiding"

"Nothing, there's nothing else, I promise you I'm not hiding anything"

Great, we've gone to bed really early because he wanted to, he'd picked at his tea, didn't really eat a lot and that's not cos me cooking is crappy these days, it's not, so that I knew that he hadn't had the best day ever. I understand that sometimes he just needs to hold me, to make love to me, to just be with me to make things feel a bit better, but this was something else. They're being deployed to fucking Kabul, not only a shit-hole but a dangerous shit-hole at that and they're going to be gone for six months and it was the first I'd even heard of it. I went on the pill just after I started me training, mainly cos I had a bit of a scare that I might be pregnant after that first time we'd been together, but now I wish I wasn't, on the pill that is, I don't know why but I've really got the willies about him going off to Afghanistan again.

We don't fight, well we bicker a bit sometimes cos we're not perfect, neither of us, but the thought of him being gone for six months out there makes me wanna scream 'no, please don't do this to me' as though this is his decision, which is not only completely fucking selfish but stupid as well, he's not doing it to me, it's his job, he's got no choice, it's what he does. It's my job too, let's face it, it could be me next time, it's just that right now I don't think I can bear it.

"Shit, what about the wedding?"

"I know, I'm so sorry" I sat up and looked at his face, he's got the most beautiful brown eyes especially when he's looking at me like that because he's really sorry about something "We'll have to postpone things till after I get back"

"Fuck"

He's wanted to get married for just about ever but I kept on saying I wouldn't because of all the bleeding nonsense with his Mum 'n that and my lot haven't been much better. Me Mum and Nan were really shitty about him after they'd met him that first time, said he was too old, too posh and too good looking, and that he would hurt me because he was bound to get bored of me in the end and was I sure that I wasn't just his bit of rough? I never spoke to them for nearly a year after that, not until me Mum called me one day to say how sorry she was for what she'd said. Dad never met him that time, he didn't bother to come home from the pub, there's a surprise! He has met him since, but he was pretty pissed, Dad that is not Charles, so he most likely wouldn't recognise him unless someone told him who the bloke in the army uniform was.

Margaret, her Majesty the Duchess of Bath, is something else entirely. I've tried, I really have tried, honest I'm not telling porkies, but I will never, ever like her. She's a bleeding snotty, snobby old witch who thinks she's better than anyone else, well a whole heap better than me anyhow. His Dad, Bill, is okay, I quite like him cos he reminds me of Charles, he looks like him and he laughs like him and at the same sort of stuff. Charles says he's jealous of the way I get on with his Dad, that his Dad flirts with me, but he's only joking, at least I think he is. Mind, it seems to get well up the Duchess's nose, oh dear what a shame, still never mind, eh? Sam, I love to bits and I think he loves me too, well he likes me a lot, we're the best of mates and Charles complains that we gang up on him, that we give him a hard time.

-OG-

It took me a bloody lifetime to persuade her to marry me and then, when she finally agreed, we booked a date just over four months away, right bang slap in the middle of this jaunt to Afghan, trust the army to fuck up your plans. Everything's arranged, church, reception, flowers and all the other stuff that's apparently essential, even the invitations are written and stamped ready to go, and now this.

"Let's get married before I go"

Suddenly it really mattered that she said yes. I wanted her to be my wife before I left, with everything signed, sealed and sorted, just in case. I know she loves me, that isn't in any doubt, but as things stand the army would see her as my girlfriend, nothing more, and wouldn't necessarily look after her.

"There isn't time" She was still sitting up looking at me, disappointment written all over her face, the one thing that has changed about Moll is that she doesn't hide her emotions behind a hard mask of indifference any more "Is there?"

"Well, not to do it the way we've planned, but we can have a blessing thing when I get back. We can do the actual wedding, you know the legal bit, before I go, what do you think?"

-OG-

"Oh fuck, whose idea was this?"

"Yours"

"Oh shit, was it really? Sorry"

"Don't be daft, how is this your fault, muppet?

"I feel like putting my six lace hole combats up an arse or two and I think I'll start with my mother, followed by my father"

"What's he done?"

"He forgot to put her muzzle on"

It was a bloody dismal day for a wedding, a horrible damp, cold Tuesday afternoon and as we looked at the people waiting in the corridor at the top of the stairs, I looked at him and we both pulled faces. We was waiting to go in the ceremony room to make our vows in front of this lot and it was like that apartheid thing between the family camps. I'd got the giggles now, but that might have been cos I was dead nervous as much as what he'd just said about his mother.

"I'm gonna have a word with mine" I marched down the corridor to where a very small bit of the Dawes clan was sitting, the boys were at school and Bella couldn't get the day off work, so only Jade was there with the older lot. They were all enjoying theirselves looking daggers at Margaret James because the old witch had turned her back on Nan and was now pretending that she had to fuss around Sam, who was busy throwing a strop and tossing his head about cos she kept trying to smooth his curls down with her hands and he was scowling at her like you wouldn't believe.

"Could you lot please try and behave? Just for a bit would do it" They all had these 'what me? not me, it weren't me, I'm innocent' expressions on their gobs, so I looked straight at the bloody ringleader "Nan, please just be nice and try and be happy for me cos you know that we're gonna be married, that I love him and I wanna marry him and you're making me bleeding sorry that we didn't just piss off somewhere and do it without you"

"It's not me what's being a bleeding pain, it's the bloody Duchess over there, she's so far up herself she'll meet herself coming back if she's not careful, I've met her sort before, you know, she's all fur coat and no knickers"

"Mum, can't you have a word with her?" I looked at me Mum, and then nodded towards Nan with me head, a bit like Charles does, then looked at old Ma James who'd kept her back to me so that I weren't sure whether she could hear all this or not. Nan hadn't even tried to keep her voice down, but I were whispering, giving her the hint about the loud way she was talking "That's Charles' mum, she's gonna be my bleeding mother-in-law for fuck's sake, why can't everyone just be nice for one afternoon?"

"Okay Molls, don't get all worked up else you'll spoil your eye stuff and then that Registry bloke will think you don't wanna get married, cos this is all such a rush he's gonna think it's some sort of forced job" Mum turned to Nan "Come on, Mum, won't kill you to be nice"

"It might" Nan was muttering now.

I could see Charles having a 'word' with his Mum and Dad as both lots turned round and gave each other fake grins, and my mate Catherine, who's one of our witnesses, did her double thumbs up sign, then crossed herself and put her hands together miming saying her prayers as she rolled her eyes at me, then pulled another face, which made me giggle, in spite of the fact that I wanted to scream. The Duchess looked at us with such a sour expression on her gob that it was obvious that a best mate who pulled faces added to her feeling that Charles was making a huge mistake and marrying beneath him.

She'd turned up at the house at the weekend and had done her best to drive me bonkers by "making suggestions" and "trying to help" with things that we'd already decided and then started pulling these "on your own heads be it" faces about everything else. She'd spent more than an hour trying to talk me into going back to the shops with her to buy a more 'suitable' wedding dress cos she weren't that keen on the shift that I'd chosen, by which I knew she meant more fancy and definitely more expensive, so that I'd spent a hell of a lot of time muttering in Charles' ear and making "I'm gonna strangle her" signs with me hands and Charles spent a lot of time apologising for his mother, who took no notice of all his efforts to make her shut her big gob.

When she weren't doing all that she was going on and on about him being deployed. About how she'd thought that there weren't any Brits in Afghan any more, how it weren't fair that he should go again, that there must be others who could go instead and that she didn't understand why he didn't just say that he'd done his bit to whoever was in charge and how much it worried her after what happened last time. Charles kept trying to explain that we were there with NATO but she didn't get it and that were all we bloody needed, someone going on and on about him nearly getting hisself killed last time, that helped a lot, didn't it?

In the end the ceremony went off beautifully and we both managed to forget our worries about what the hell was going on behind us as we got swept up in the whole thing and only had eyes and ears for each other as the Registrar pronounced that we were now man and wife and for some reason as I looked at her, tears flooded those beautiful green eyes and poured down her cheeks.

"Don't cry sweetheart, it'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be back before you know it"

"I'm not crying" She sniffed "It's nothing, I know you'll be fine, I'm just happy, what about you?"

"Of course I'm happy, mind you, I'd be even happier if I thought we could get through the afternoon without my mother starting World War Three"

As Molly started giggling we left for the small buffet lunch and drinks reception which, as far as I could tell, went off very well. No-one did anything that started an argument with anyone else, although Molly's Nan kept on saying that it wasn't a real wedding without a punch-up and that it was usual at a family do to need to keep people apart because of ASBOs and parole conditions. Molly kept warning her to shut up trying to wind everyone up because we all knew she was just saying stuff to stir it up and eventually Molly's Mum told her Nan to put a bleeding sock in it, a choice of words which went down exceptionally well with my mother, who looked straight down her nose, although my Dad laughed.

Dave, Molly's Dad, didn't get hammered so he didn't take issue with anyone or anything and I could see the relief that was written all over Moll's face and Sam got a serious attack of the giggles, so he was obviously enjoying himself. Mind you, Molly's Nan was looking out for him, so Christ knows what she was saying to him to make him laugh like that.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, course I am. Mind, your mum's just told me that I should maybe think about taking some of them elocution lessons while you're away"

"She didn't? God, the cheeky cow, what did you say?"

"I said I'd consider it, maybe once I found out what they was"

"Oh Christ, you're brilliant, I do love you Molly James"

We only stayed for a couple of hours, the taxi was booked for four o'clock to take us to the hotel for a few days, mind you, two hours seemed to me to be quite long enough with the amount of tension there was, which was a bit of a shame, it was our wedding after all and there seemed to me to be enough tension already with what was waiting round the corner.

-OG-

I went back to live at barracks when Charles left for Kabul, I decided to be with Catherine and the rest of me mates cos the house seemed to be so bleeding empty and I was so lonely without him, every day seemed to last for about a week and every week went on for-bleeding-ever, and I lived for his phone calls and Skype. I'd stopped taking me pill as soon as I knew about him being deployed, I really, really wanted to get pregnant so that this time I was so down and disappointed when me period started, and it wasn't even late, bang on time as usual. I'd really wanted it to happen; I hated how scared I was that something was going to happen to him.

I've decided what I'm gonna do when he gets back, I don't know whether I'll be trying to get pregnant as soon as I can cos he don't know anything about that yet, but I'm not gonna stop in the army, I'm gonna see if I can join the Ambulance Service or something. I love being a medic, I really do, and I know I'm good at it, but as things are I could be deployed somewhere, even fucking Kabul, as soon as he gets back or even before then, which would mean another six months without him, so no thanks.

-OG-

I knew as soon as I saw them standing there at the other end of the corridor talking to me CO. In ten day's he'll be home and safe, and now there's these two strange officers what have turned round to look at me as she crooked her finger to show that I had to join them. I couldn't feel me legs, and me head started spinning with 'No, No, No, No, please No, please …..… No' but I just stood there, not saying anything as the tall one spoke to me.

"Private James?" I nodded, I wanted to scream at him to stop farting about and to just tell me, or to bugger off and not tell me cos I _did not want to hear it._

-OG-

 **A/N: Sorry if I made it look as though Chapter 8 was the end, their story isn't quite finished yet.**

 **Thank you for your feedback, hope you enjoy this chapter.**


	10. Chapter 10

_**The one who loves you so**_

I don't remember much of what them officers said, I tried hard to listen but I just wanted them to shut the fuck up so that I could get there and see for meself and I know it's not far to Frimley Park, but every bloody Sunday afternoon driver was in me bleeding way, out for a piddle about with Grandma.

Shit, shit, shit …. pneumonia, bloody pneumonia!

What the fuck did he think he was doing, carrying on like there was nothing wrong when he must have been feeling like shit? Apparently they'd all had this flu bug what was flying round Kabul, but my bleeding hero thought he could shake it off by taking a couple of aspirins and keeping on going. He never went to see the medic, oh no, he just ignored it that he was burning up and had this tight chest with an horrible cough that was hurting him, thought a good night's sleep would sort it, well that's what he thought till he keeled over in a bloody heap in the mess tent. Muppet. Them officers said that the MO was sure he must of been walking around with it brewing for a couple of days at least. I'll bloody kill him when he wakes up.

I've been sitting here in this HDU forever and he's still out of it, they've offered me a bed, said he'd be asleep for a while yet, but I can't just go off and leave him. I've been watching the clock tick round and listening to all the machines beep and every now and then a nurse comes in and does some checks 'n stuff, and they all sort of smile at me with this 'there, there, don't worry' sort of smile before they go off again. I knew that he'd been sedated for the flight home and that being propped up like that with the oxygen is helping him with his breathing, and that he's being monitored and that all the drips 'n that are there to help, but he looks like shit.

He was so hot when I got here, his skin was all dry and burning when I touched his hand and he looked grey with these purple shadows under his eyes. Not only that, he was restless, shifting hisself about, and coughing a hell of a lot and you could see that it bloody hurt when he coughed, but he's a lot calmer now and his oxygen sats are okay, well they're a lot better than they was anyhow. He's still coughing, but it's not so bad now and he's stopped wincing and grunting every time he coughs, they keep on telling me that the antibiotics are working now so that he's tons better than he was. In that case fuck knows what he was like before they brought him home.

I'm going to have to call the bloody Duchess in the morning so that she can come up here and start flinging her weight about. I know that's most likely not very fair, cos I know that she loves him to bits and that she needs to know, she's his mum after all, but I don't want her here; I just wish he would bleeding well wake up.

It was half past four in the morning when he surfaced, I was still sitting there holding his hand when he opened his eyes, but he never said nothing, I think he might have thought he was dreaming like you do when you've got a bit of a temperature. I just smiled at him and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, he still felt bleeding hot to me, so I told him to go back to sleep and he closed his eyes again, but it did make me feel a bit better that he'd woken up, sort of.

"What the hell did you think you was doing?"

He was awake when I got back from washing me face and having a cuppa, I'd been good and rung the Duchess, so she's on her way but by the time she gets here I'll be properly minging, lucky me, that's if I'm not already. He put his hand out to hold mine so he's obviously more with it than he was last time he woke up, and I stroked his hair back, then put the back of me hand against his forehead like me mum used to do when I was a kid and a bit poorly. He's cooled down a lot, which is a relief then he sort of nodded his eyes down towards the mask over his face, he had no hands free to move it, one's got a drip in it and I've got hold of the other one.

"Do you want me to move this?"

He nodded so I moved it up over his head for a minute so he could speak, his face was all red and marked and sweaty where the mask had been so I wiped it for him with a tissue and he smiled.

"Sorry"

"So I should bloody well think, how do you feel anyhow?"

"Been better"

"I dunno, trust you to make a song and dance about a cold and then go and get man flu"

He tried to laugh and then shook his head as I put the oxygen mask back on, but he's not ready to do without it yet, they'll come in and get shot of it when he is. I'd got this great big lump in me throat and wanted to bawl, but I couldn't really could I? Not without upsetting him that is.

"Your mum's on her way"

I could see by the way he closed his eyes for a second that that weren't the best bit of news he's ever had so I giggled a bit, I think a good bit of that was the relief that was flooding through me.

"Serves you bloody right for scaring the shit out of me"

He did his best to smile, although I could see that it was an hell of an effort and his eyes was getting all heavy and dozy again, and as he's so packed full of drugs I just sat there and held onto his hand and stroked the back of his knuckles as he drifted back off to sleep. I think I might have dropped off for a bit meself, cos it felt like I woke up suddenly all stiff and awkward on the hard plastic chair with eyes that had been cooked in boiling oil and I could hear the bloody Duchess talking to one of the nurses outside his room.

"I'll sit with him while you go and get something to eat, maybe change your clothes, freshen up a bit"

"Thanks"

I know she was trying to be nice 'n that, but she'd managed to make me feel like ten types of shit, grubby, scruffy, smelly, in the way, you name it I felt it. I have to keep reminding meself that she's his mum and that she loves him and that he loves her, and that she needs to be here cos he's really poorly, but I'm not the bloody cleaner that she employed when he was living in Epsom, I'm his wife and I love him too. Mind, as far as she's concerned no-one, whoever they are, will ever be quite good enough for him, well definitely not me that's one thing that's for certain.

I know he's feeling a bit better this evening, well enough to have a drink anyhow, but the MO tells me that it's gonna take a while before he's back on his feet, silly bugger. Mind, I think the Duchess really got that I'm his wife tonight, the MO came in and wanted to talk to me about him and she had to put up with waiting to hear everything second hand through me, I don't think she was too thrilled actually.

-OG-

Mum pushed off this morning, which, to be honest was a relief. I know that she loves me and that I've given her another bloody scare, and I'm really sorry about that, not that did it deliberately whatever my wife says, but she really does bring out the worst in Moll. Why the hell my mother can't see past her background and recognise that she is the sweetest, kindest, most loving person you could ever be lucky enough to meet, I don't know, but once I'm out of here I am going to have another go at getting her to see what she's missing. At the moment Moll is calling it a result that she's gone home to Bath.

I've spent a lot of the time sleeping, I keep dropping off even though it's hard to sleep when I'm propped up but every time I slip down they come in and sit me up again. Moll has spent hours just sitting next to me and talking, telling me all about her plans. Sometimes when I'm listening I have the feeling that I may have dropped off for a bit, but she doesn't have a go, just waits till I'm awake again and then carries on where she left off.

I was a bit surprised when she said about wanting a baby, I don't know why I was surprised because it's a bloody brilliant idea, but that she'd already tried to get pregnant before I went off to Kabul, clearly wasn't. I know why she did it, but I would quite like to be around when we have children and to know when we're making one. I explained that she might have to wait out a bit anyway, because I'm not sure I've got the energy right now, so she called me a bloody dickhead, which I think is Molly speak for 'I Love You'. She thinks she's probably going to have to wait out anyway because she wouldn't be able to get a job in the ambulance service if she's, as she puts it, knocked up.

The day she married me was, without doubt, the best day of my life, well since Sam was born, whatever my mother might say, although the day she takes herself out of any chance of deployment to some shitty war zone will come a close second. I've always been a bit afraid that she'll be sent into danger, I remember the day that I first talked to her about joining up and becoming a medic and her telling me that she'd have to be bloody stupid to join the army to get shot at, and maybe she'd had a point.

-OG-

They let him come home today and even though it's only a few miles from Frimley Park to here he was bloody knackered when we got in and went straight off to bed for a rest. I went up after a while and looked in, and he were fast asleep, so it were just like all them years ago when I first knew him and he was recovering from being shot. I didn't love him then, well I didn't even know him really, but this time I lay down next to him on the bed and put me arm round him then behaved like a total muppet, which isn't like me at all.

I don't know what I was bawling for, except that maybe it was such a relief to have him home in one piece, but I know that no matter what, I love him to bits.

-OG-

 _ **Epilogue**_

 _ **1 Year on**_

"Okay folks, thanks, we'll take over now, well done everyone" Suddenly there were people all over the place, paramedics, a doctor, an anaesthetist, someone shouting and the thump of the helicopter rotors as others took over and then, in the blink of an eye the helicopter had lifted off whisking their casualty away from Molly and Bill towards the nearest trauma unit, leaving them to clear up the detritus of the incident.

"You okay, are you stuck, do you need some help to get up?" A young London policeman gave Molly his hand to help her to her feet, her legs had stiffened up and were refusing to move from kneeling for so long on a cold wet pavement in the middle of a London street "How do you reckon he'll do, will he make it?"

"I dunno, mate" She looked across at Bill who shook his head ruefully "I sort of doubt it a bit actually, he'd lost a shed load of blood before we even got here, so it don't look very good" she shook her head and patted him comfortingly on the arm, he only looked about twelve and it had been a pretty traumatic last hour or so for him. The poor young policeman had been first on the scene and had tried his best to give first aid, but the whole incident had shocked him rigid.

"Bloody hell, the stuff these young buggers do to one another, beggars belief doesn't it, and it was probably all over nothing, it usually is" Bill was muttering loudly at the same time as tidying away equipment into the warm, brightly lit interior of the ambulance, even though it was broad daylight it lit up the murky, damp and dreary day, as the crowd of onlookers or 'ghouls' as Bill called them drifted away knowing there was nothing else to see now. "Do we know who he is, what his name is or how old? No, of course not, he's just some lad who got himself stabbed in the guts, no doubt for his bloody mobile phone or 'disrespecting' some other young gobshite or something equally stupid" Bill carried on muttering to himself and to the other policeman who was also middle-aged and who was helping him pick up packs of dressings "Bring back National Service I say, the army would soon sort them out, give them some discipline, hey Molls, I'm right aren't I?"

Molly grinned and shook her head at him, they'd been working together for six months or so and he still kept deferring to her as an expert on all things to do with army discipline, he couldn't forget that she'd been an army medic before she'd joined the LAS. Bill was one of those who thought that putting people in the army was the answer to everything, to sorting out hooligans, to dealing with rapists and muggers not to mention binge drinkers and the gang members who regularly tried to do away with one another on his shift.

Now that the whole thing was over, Molly looked down at her uniform trousers which were soaked from the wet pavement and the casualty's blood, even her hi-vis jacket was splattered, and pulled a face then shook her head as she refused to allow herself to think about what they'd just had to deal with.

The rest of their shift was far more routine, a fat toddler had fallen down the stairs and was unhurt except that he had two stonking black eyes, a swollen nose and, once he'd stopped screaming the place down, a big happy grin, an old lady who'd had a funny turn in a shop, a business man who'd had an epileptic fit on the tube, and some old bloke who'd thought midday was a good time to get paralytic, nothing out of the ordinary at all except that the news of their stab victim was not what they'd wanted to hear. He'd never made it to the trauma unit, he'd suffered a cardiac arrest in the helicopter on the way and they hadn't been able to get him back, so Molly and Bill were both glad when their shift was over.

-OG-

The street was quiet and the lights was already on as I sat down on the garden wall outside our house and tried to stop the shakes that I had from the cold and I s'pose, the shock. I sat there and forced meself to think about the nightmare that had been in me head ever since that first call today. We'd taken the triple 9 and raced off through the rush hour traffic, our blues and twos blaring as we tried our best to get there as quickly as we could to deal with some young bloke who'd got hisself stabbed in his stomach. But he was dead. That lad was dead. And I couldn't stop the shakes. It could have been Charles. That could have been Charles that had died. He could be dead and I'd had this need all day to hold onto him and hug him as tight as I could, so as I could believe that it wasn't him, that he's still alive and kicking.

His first brush with death had been before I knew him, but he'd been bleeding lucky to survive a nasty bout of pneumonia last year, something that had taken him weeks and weeks to recover from but which was now ancient history, thank God. Bill and I often had patients with dodgy chests and stuff and they didn't give me the willies, but this lad's injury had.

He was in our kitchen at the back of the house and shouted out his 'hello' as he carried on doing something at the cooker and I kicked off me shoes and coat and went to stand behind him. I put me arms round his waist and hugged the sort of solid warmth of him as hard as I could even though I couldn't say a dicky bird. At first he leaned back against me, I think he was enjoying me pressing meself against his back, something I haven't been too keen on in the last couple of months, so I don't think he realised to start with that there was anything wrong.

"I think I might have wrecked this" He peered into the pan pulling a face as I held onto him, I still couldn't say nothing "What do you think?"

"Moll?" He tried to turn round but I was holding him far too tight, I was gripping him like I'd never let him go and I think he could feel that I was still shaking a bit, I just couldn't stop "Moll, what's up?"

"Nothing, I just really need to hug you"

He managed to turn round and cuddle me against his chest so I tightened me arms round him again.

"Tell me, come on, please tell me what the fuck's wrong?"

"Nothing really, just a shit day at work that's all, I really, really needed to hug you"

-OG-

Something was wrong when Molly came in from work tonight; I thought for a horrible moment that it was something to do with the baby, that she might have had a miscarriage although I would have thought in that case she'd have come straight home. Mind you, this is Molly I'm talking about so who knows?

Eventually she told me, after we'd ditched the stir fry as inedible and sent out for a curry which she'd picked at and pushed round her plate, but didn't eat. I thought she might be feeling queasy again, most days she's spent hours with her head down the loo, although it has improved in the last week or so. It was when I offered to get her some dry toast or something that she suddenly burst into floods of tears and talked about a lad who'd bled to death from a stomach wound and how hard they'd tried to keep him alive and how it had made her feel and how she'd needed to hug me, to make sure for herself that I'd survived, that it wasn't me lying there bleeding to death. I put my arms round her and just held her and for once she didn't complain that I had to get off because I was squashing her tits which were killing her.

-OG-

"You okay now, feeling better?"

I'm still a bit shaky, it's sort of like when you have a nightmare and you wake up and put the lights on to make it all go away. I don't know whether it's cos I'm pregnant or because he was so ill last year, but I'm still shit scared some'ing is gonna happen to him. He keeps telling me that it's just Lady Luck, and I know it sounds bloody dumb, but I feel like he's cheated death twice now, once when he got shot like that and recovered like he did and once when he got so poorly. This morning showed me exactly what it must have been like when he was shot and just how lucky he was … and how lucky I am.

"Yeah, sorry about all them bleeding dramatics when I come in, it was just that it was such a shit day"

"You're allowed"

"If you say it's me hormones I'll bloody swing for you"

"It's your hormones"

"Smartarse"

-OG-

 **A/N: I know this is very long and I did consider breaking it into two short chapters, but then decided to let it go as it is, so I hope that you enjoy it. Thanks for the reviews that I've had for the story, as I said when I unintentionally gave everyone the impression it was finished, I have really enjoyed writing it and was having a little self-indulgent wallow imagining CJ being a poorly little 'soldier' needing lots of TLC (form an orderly queue behind me).**

 **Lily has now had all her jabs so I can take her out for a walk, so I'm off to start trying to train her to walk on a lead, help ! and to sort out some of the ideas that are buzzing about my brain for what comes next.**


End file.
